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Human predictions for AI in higher education in 2025
The year 2023 was a watershed moment for artificial intelligence. ChatGPT made its way into classrooms, prompting educators to grapple with AI’s potential and pitfalls. Industry leaders like Sundar Pichai declared AI as transformative as fire or electricity, while others voiced caution, warning of ethical dilemmas and societal upheaval.

Two years later, amid the headlines and hype, the deeper question remains: What will AI actually look like in our day-to-day lives in higher ed? Understanding how AI will shape learning, recruitment and operations by 2025 is no longer optional—it’s essential.

Below are five key ways AI is poised to transform higher education in 2025. These predictions aren’t abstract theories; they’re practical insights to guide your strategic planning, help you stay competitive and ensure your institution thrives in an AI-driven era.
1. AI Agents Will Revolutionize Learning and Administration
AI-powered agents are on the cusp of becoming indispensable tools in higher education. These intelligent systems are already taking on roles as digital mentors, capable of guiding students through complex material with tailored feedback. You may be familiar, for example, with Georgia State University’s AI chat-bot pilot program that answered student questions about financial aid and registration, reducing summer melt by 21 percent. In 2025, such agents will act as personalized tutors, adapting to individual learning styles and offering real-time academic support.

Beyond learning, AI will also streamline administrative operations. Routine tasks like course scheduling, admissions processing and answering common student inquiries will increasingly fall to these systems, freeing human staff to focus on strategic initiatives.

Imagine admissions officers who no longer spend hours manually reviewing applications but instead analyze data-driven insights provided by AI agents to make quicker, more informed decisions.

This year will also bring us a new generation of AI that doesn’t just respond but takes action. For example, with agentic AI, a text might automatically go out to an applicant who needs a nudge to submit remaining documents—without a staff member lifting a finger.

The future of higher education will be defined by AI systems that seamlessly blend proactive support with human expertise, transforming both student success and institutional efficiency.
1. Generative AI Search Will Reshape Digital Engagement
Generative AI is changing how prospective students discover and interact with institutions online. Platforms like ChatGPT are making it easier for users to ask complex questions and receive synthesized, conversational answers. Instead of clicking through multiple webpages, users increasingly expect clear and direct responses. In 2025, this shift will make traditional SEO strategies less effective, forcing institutions to reimagine their digital presence.

One way they might do that is to incorporate generative AI search into their websites. You’ve likely used generative AI search yourself in Google—it’s the AI overview at the top of the page when you do a search that shows a summary answer of your query drawn from the sites that would traditionally appear in a list of search results.

To prepare for students using AI tools outside of your site (e.g., ChatGPT, Perplexity) to learn about your school or incorporate generative AI search into your own site, there are critical to-dos for your website content teams to make your content as relevant, up-to-date and engaging as possible.

The stakes are high: AI often relies on the most visible or credible content to provide answers. Universities with fragmented or outdated digital strategies risk being left behind, while those with robust, high-quality content will find themselves highlighted in AI-driven searches.

Institutions that prioritize creating unique, authoritative content—such as faculty research profiles or interactive student success stories—will gain an edge in this new search landscape.
1. Hyperpersonalization Will Redefine Student Engagement
The days of one-size-fits-all communication and student services have ended. In 2025, institutions will rely on AI to create hyperpersonalized experiences that resonate with each student’s unique needs and goals. Drawing inspiration from industries like retail and entertainment, universities will use AI to craft individualized learning paths, anticipate challenges and deliver targeted interventions before students even ask for help.

For example, Purdue University’s Course Signals initiative uses data analytics to identify students who may be at risk of falling behind and sends personalized alerts encouraging them to seek support. This type of proactive engagement not only improves retention rates but also fosters a sense of belonging. As McKinsey aptly describes it, the future of student engagement hinges on embracing the “care of one.”

However, this approach raises ethical concerns. Institutions must carefully manage data privacy and ensure that algorithms do not inadvertently disadvantage certain groups. Transparency about how student data is collected and used will be crucial in maintaining trust.
1. Faculty and Staff Roles Will Evolve Alongside AI
The integration of AI will not replace faculty and staff but will redefine their roles. In 2025, educators will focus less on rote instruction and more on mentorship, critical thinking and creativity. This shift is already evident in programs like Northeastern University’s Experiential AI initiative, which trains faculty to incorporate AI tools into their teaching to enrich the student experience.

Marketing and admissions teams will also need to adapt. AI insights can reveal patterns in prospective student behavior, allowing teams to craft campaigns that resonate on a deeper level. However, this will require staff to develop new skills in data interpretation and digital strategy.

The transition won’t be without challenges. Institutions must invest in professional development to help their teams thrive in an AI-enhanced environment. Collaborative efforts between IT, academic affairs and marketing will ensure the successful adoption of these technologies.
1. Ethical Challenges Will Take Center Stage
The adoption of AI presents significant ethical considerations that will shape its implementation in higher education. From ensuring unbiased algorithms to safeguarding student data, institutions will need to tread carefully. Recent incidents, such as the use of biased AI tools in hiring processes, highlight the risks of unchecked AI deployment.

Higher education can lead the way by modeling responsible AI practices. For example, Stanford University has established an Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, emphasizing the ethical use of AI technologies across disciplines. By prioritizing fairness, transparency and accountability, institutions can harness AI’s potential without compromising their values.

Preparing for 2025 and Beyond

AI will ultimately elevate higher ed. Institutions that embrace AI’s changes with foresight and care will enhance their competitiveness, improve operational efficiency and create more meaningful experiences for students and staff alike. Success will depend on a willingness to adapt, invest in ethical practices and put students at the center of every decision.

Mallory Willsea is chief strategist and producer at Enrollify.
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January 7, 2025
Community colleges in the lurch after WIOA bill founders

A bipartisan effort to update the nation’s workforce development law is dead, depriving hundreds of community colleges of increased funds and opportunities to cut through the red tape surrounding short-term job training.

The Stronger Workforce for America Act would have given community colleges automatic eligibility to enter into training contracts with local workforce development offices, introduced a new federal grant and protected several existing programs from potential budget cuts in the new fiscal year.

The bill’s sponsors were hopeful that the bipartisan legislation to reauthorize the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act would pass Congress before the end of the year, as it was included in a wider spending package to fund the government. But when Republicans voiced opposition to the omnibus spending bill just over 24 hours before the government shutdown deadline, lawmakers reversed course. They instead passed a pared-down continuing resolution to fund the government through mid-March, and WIOA reauthorization didn’t make the cut.

Leaders on the House education and workforce committee had said the Stronger Workforce for America Act would create “transformative change” for the American workforce, pointing to how WIOA helps American workers keep pace with an ever-changing job market and gain high-demand skills. Reauthorizing WIOA was a top priority for Representative Virginia Foxx, the North Carolina Republican who chaired the committee until December.

Members of the House and Senate education and workforce committees worked for the last two years to update the workforce bill, which expired in 2020. The House plan overwhelmingly passed last spring, and the Senate released a draft plan over the summer. The Senate bill didn’t move forward, but key lawmakers in the House and Senate reached a compromise in late November to update WIOA.

Groups like the National Association of Workforce Boards and the American Association of Community Colleges say the death of the Stronger Workforce act won’t kill their programs, but nonetheless they expressed concerns about how a lack of reauthorization makes their programs vulnerable. They are trying to remain hopeful that reauthorization will be a priority for this Congress.

“As the session waned, it was clear that getting a bill enacted in 2024 was going to be extremely difficult,” David Baime, senior vice president of government relations at AACC, said in a statement. “However, we are grateful for WIOA’s champions and very optimistic that a reauthorization will be enacted by the next Congress.”

Until then, Inside Higher Ed called Baime to talk about the bill and what it means for community colleges and short-term workforce training. Here are three key obstacles he said remain until WIOA gets an update.

Bureaucracy and Eligibility

One of the largest benefits for community colleges under the Stronger Workforce act was that their training programs would have automatically qualified for federal WIOA grants.

Currently, any training provider—be it a community college, an employer or a for-profit technical institution—must meet certain performance criteria in order to receive WIOA dollars. About $500 million is available for job training vouchers each year.

Often, colleges receive funds by entering a contract with a local workforce board. The process begins with local workforce development agencies identifying key trades or certifications that are in high demand among their community. Then the board picks an approved training provider and contracts with them to train a set number of workers.

But for years, jumping through the hoops required to make that eligibility list kept many underresourced community colleges from receiving those contracts and federal funds.

“The bureaucratic nature of WIOA has made for some presidents not being as engaged as they might be,” Baime said. “In these cases, they just don’t find it worthwhile to invest a lot of time in their local workforce boards.”

The WIOA update would have cut down that red tape.

Increased Funds

But even if community colleges did automatically qualify, Baime said, the funding set aside specifically for training programs is limited, and competition with other providers like for-profit technical institutions and employers is steep.

“In fact, a lot more money for training goes to our students through Pell than through WIOA,” Baime explained.

Since 2020, the Strengthening Community Colleges Training Grant program has provided dedicated funding for training programs at community colleges. Most recently, the Labor Department awarded $65 million to 18 colleges. Through five rounds of funding, more than 200 colleges have received a total $265 million.

But the grant program was never formally authorized. That means there is no mandate requiring Congress to set aside a certain amount of funds each year, and the grant depends entirely on advocacy from specific lawmakers.

The WIOA update would have authorized the grant, providing statutory protection for the funds.

“SCCTG is a really important program for us. The program relies upon a tested model of community colleges working directly with businesses, in coordination with the federal workforce system. It’s not funded at the level we would like, but it reflects an appropriate prioritization of the role that community colleges play in job training,” Baime said.

A few other, less direct funding increases were also lost when the legislation died. For example, one policy would have required 50 percent of all WIOA funds to be spent on training rather than administrative fees, leading local workforce boards to invest more in contracts with outside providers.

Another would have specified that historically broad H1-B grants, which use the revenue from skills-based visas to train American workers, must be used to upskill individuals forced out of their current roles by innovations like AI. Workers would have received up to $5,000 through that change.

“We think a voucher that size may be an attractive inducement for dislocated workers to receive training at community colleges,” Baime said.

Future Vulnerability

Finally, for community colleges, a key concern is how the incoming Congress and Trump administration will approach WIOA, especially now that legislation has failed.

Republicans in Congress have made it clear they want to “substantially reduce funding,” so Baime fears that WIOA funding of all types could face serious cuts.

The SCCTG, for example, which has historically been advocated for by Democrats, may no longer get a budget line at all.

“The importance of workforce education is appreciated by lawmakers across the Hill,” he explained. “But we certainly would have rather gotten that bipartisan, bicameral demonstration of support by being part of this bill and enacted into statute going into the [fiscal year 2026] appropriations process.”

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January 7, 2025
New book envisions colleges dedicated to Earth’s well-being

What is a climate justice university, and how can our universities transform into institutions that truly promote the well-being of the earth and humanity? Jennie C. Stephens’s new book, Climate Justice and the University: Shaping a Hopeful Future for All (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2024), sets out to answer that question. It outlines where today’s universities fall short in their handling not only of the climate crisis but also a wealth of other modern social issues.

The book lays out broad ideas for transforming how universities function in society, such as shifting research practices to collaborate with people and communities affected by the issues, like the climate crisis, at the center of that research. Stephens, who is a professor at both the National University of Ireland Maynoonth and Northeastern University, acknowledges in the introduction that such a transformation would be a major undertaking, and one that many universities would be disinclined to tackle. “Because of the internal pressure within higher education to maintain institutional norms, this book and its proposal for climate justice universities are, in some ways, radical acts of resistance,” she writes.

In a phone interview, Stephens spoke with Inside Higher Ed about her vision for climate justice universities—and how modern institutions fail to meet it. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: It was interesting reading that your perspective on these issues comes both from your scholarly work and from a time that you worked on the administrative side of academia. Could you describe how those experiences came together to inspire this book?

A: I’ve been working in academia my whole career—more than 30 years—and during that time, I’ve been focused on climate and energy issues and sustainability from a very social justice perspective. What has happened through my experiences over time is that I see part of society’s inadequate response to the climate crisis mirrored in academia.

I think higher education has a really big role in society—in what we are doing and what we’re not doing, in how we’re teaching and learning, in what we’re doing research on and what we’re not doing research on—and I think that our collective insufficient response to the climate crisis is related to what’s been happening in our higher education institutions, which are increasingly very financialized. They’re driven by profit-seeking priorities and new tech and start-ups and focused on job training. We’ve drifted away from a public-good mission of higher education: What does society need in this very disruptive time, and how can our higher education institutions better respond to the needs of society, particularly of vulnerable and marginalized communities and people and households who are increasingly struggling with all kinds of precarity and vulnerabilities?

Q: How would you define the term “climate justice university”?

A: The idea of a climate justice university is a university with a mission and a purpose to create more healthy, equitable, sustainable futures for everyone. So, that is a very public-good mission. The idea is to connect the climate crisis with all the other injustices and the … multiple different crises that are happening right now; the climate crisis is just one among many. We also have a cost of living crisis; we have a mental health crisis, we have financial crises; we have a plastic pollution crisis and a biodiversity crisis; we have a crisis in international law and a militarization crisis. We have all of these crises, and yet what we’re doing in our universities tends to continue to be quite siloed and trying to address parts of specific problems, rather than acknowledging that these crises are symptoms of larger systemic challenges.

For me, climate justice is a paradigm shift toward a transformative lens, acknowledging that things are getting worse and worse in so many dimensions, and that if we want a better future for humanity and for societies around the world, we actually need big, transformative change. A lot of things we do in our universities are reinforcing the status quo and not promoting or endorsing transformative change. So, climate justice is a paradigm shift with a transformative lens that focuses less on individual behavior, more on collective action, less on technological change, more on social change, and less on profit-seeking priorities, more on well-being priorities. What do human beings need to live meaningful, healthy lives, and how can society be more oriented toward that?

Q: Can you talk a bit more about how the current structure of the university maintains the status quo with regard to climate?

A: One of the ways that I think universities kind of perpetuate the status quo is by not acknowledging what a disruptive time we’re in with regard to climate crisis, but other crises as well. There’s an encouragement on many campuses for kind of being complacent, like, “Oh, this is the way the world is.” Not necessarily encouraging students and researchers to imagine alternative futures.

There’s also a focus on doing research that billionaires or corporate interests want us to do, and—in particular, in the climate space—what this has led to is a lot of climate and energy research that is funded by big companies and other wealthy donors who actually don’t want change. We have more and more research to show who has been obstructing climate action and transformative change for a more stable climate future. We know many of those same companies and same fossil fuel interests have also been very strategically investing in our universities. What that does is constrain the research and also the public discourse about climate and energy futures toward very fossil fuel–friendly futures.

Early on in my own career, I worked on projects that were funded by the fossil fuel industry on carbon capture and storage, and a lot of the climate and energy research in our universities is focused on carbon capture and storage, carbon dioxide removal technology, geoengineering—all these technical fixes that assume we’re just going to keep using fossil fuels. What we really need, if we had more climate justice universities that were focused on the public good and what the climate science has been telling us for decades, is to phase out fossil fuels. We need a global initiative to phase out fossil fuels. But we don’t have in our universities much research on how to phase out fossil fuels.

Q: In your book, you discuss the concept of exnovation—the process of phasing out inefficient or harmful technologies. Why is research into exnovation not already more common in higher education, and what are the main barriers for researchers who want to take this approach?

A: I do think funding has a lot to do with it. There’s a whole chapter in the book about the financialization of higher education institutions, which has resulted from kind of a decline in public support toward more private sector support, which means that universities are beholden to private sector interests, increasingly, and they’re encouraged and incentivized to cater to and partner with … private sector interests. I think that has really changed the kinds of impact that higher education institutions and research has had.

Of course, there are a lot of people within universities who are interested in the public good and doing research on exnovation. But the incentive structure, even among those of us who would want to contribute in those ways, is such that we are increasingly incentivized and promoted based on how much money we can bring in, how many papers can we get published and the scale of resources available to do research. So, there’s a larger, long-term strategy to orient research toward the technical fixes, particularly when it comes to climate and energy, and a lot less funding available for social change or governance research on how to bring back the public-good priorities in our policies, our funding, in our universities. It’s really a longer-term trend that has led to this financialization.

Q: You lay out a lot of alternative ideas for financing universities, which is important given that anxiety over funding is at an all-time high at some institutions. Walk me through some of your ideas and talk about the feasibility of restructuring how universities are funded.

A: One idea in the chapter on new ways of engaging and being more relevant is what if we imagine higher education institutions more like public libraries? Public libraries, we all kind of recognize as valuable resources for everyone; every community should have some access to a public library. What if higher education could be [better] invested in that sense of being a resource and not being an ivory tower that is really hard to get into and only some privileged people get access to? What if our higher education institutions were designed and funded to provide more accessible and relevant resources, co-created with communities? That’s kind of one of the big ideas of imagining what this really valuable resource could be more relevant and more connected to the needs of society and of communities.

You also asked about feasibility, and one of the things that I want to point out is that this book is not a how-to; every context and region and different place in the world has different things going on with their higher education institutions. The idea with this book is to invite us all to kind of think about, what is the purpose of higher education institutions? And how can we better leverage all the public investment that is already spent on higher education institutions? How can that be oriented toward better futures for everyone?

At higher education institutions that are feeling very vulnerable, having a lot of anxiety about funding levels—the ideas in this book don’t provide a prescription on how to fix that in the near term. But the ideas in the book are really to encourage us all—and especially those involved in higher education policy and higher education funding—to re-evaluate and reclaim the public-good mission of higher education and reconsider how to restructure higher education so that the value and the resources are more accessible, more relevant and more transformative, in terms of fitting the needs of a very disruptive time for humanity and for societies and communities around the country and around the world.

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January 6, 2025
Dartmouth Men’s Basketball Team Drops Union Bid

The Dartmouth College men’s basketball team is dropping its historic bid to form a union, months after voting to do so.

The decision, announced Tuesday, comes as Republicans are poised to take control of the National Labor Relations Board, which could affect who is allowed to unionize on college campuses. A regional office of the board cleared the way earlier this year for the players to vote on the petition, ruling that the student-athletes were employees and thus allowed to unionize.

Dartmouth disagreed with that opinion and refused to bargain with the team until the five-member NLRB ruled on the issue. Currently, the five-member panel has two vacancies, so incoming President Donald Trump could quickly reshape the board. In withdrawing the petition, the Service Employees International Union, Local 560, which represents the players, decided not to gamble with the new board and potentially risk a negative opinion.

“By filing a request to withdraw our petition today, we seek to preserve the precedent set by this exceptional group of young people on the men’s varsity basketball team,” local president Chris Peck said in a statement to the Associated Press. “They have pushed the conversation on employment and collective bargaining in college sports forward and made history by being classified as employees, winning their union election 13-2, and becoming the first certified bargaining unit of college athletes in the country.”

The Dartmouth team union threatened to upend college sports and added more urgency to the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s efforts to settle the question of whether student athletes are employees who can collectively bargain. The NCAA has lobbied Congress to pass a law affirming that college athletes aren’t employees. The incoming Congress seems likely to grant that request.

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December 31, 2024
Biden administration finalizes distance ed, TRIO rules

The Biden administration’s regulations changing how colleges are held accountable and adding new requirements for institutions to access federal financial aid are now in place, though legal challenges loom.

Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post/Getty Images

Colleges will have to submit to the federal government new data on their distance education programs under a batch of new rules the Biden administration finalized Monday.

The rules, which will take effect July 1, 2026, will likely be the president’s last package of new regulations for colleges and universities before Trump takes office Jan. 20.

The new regulations carry out Biden’s plan to increase federal oversight of online programs, but the final version doesn’t go as far as the president initially intended After receiving significant pushback from online education lobbyists, the Education Department conceded, backing off a plan to disallow asynchronous options for clock-hour courses or require colleges to take attendance in online classes.

The package does, however, still include rules that require colleges to report more data on enrollment in distance education classes, which include those offered online or via correspondence. Higher ed institutions won’t have to begin submitting the data until July 1, 2027.

“Online learning can reach more students and sometimes at a lower cost to students, but what we know about the outcomes of online education compared to traditional in-person instruction is woefully inadequate,” Under Secretary James Kvaal said in the release. “The new reporting in this final rule will help the department and the public better assess student outcomes at online programs and help students make informed choices.”

The final rule also included technical changes to federal college prep programs known as TRIO. But the department decided not to move forward with a plan to open eligibility to some TRIO programs to undocumented students—a long-sought goal of some TRIO directors and advocates, as well as higher education associations.

Distance Education

But one of the most controversial parts of the rule for colleges and universities was whether Biden would decide to end any asynchronous options for students in online clock-hour programs, which are typically short-term workforce training programs that lead to a certificate.

A Trump-era rule allowed asynchronous learning activities—such as watching a prerecorded video—to count toward the required number of credits in short-term clock-hour programs. But the department said in its proposal that because of the hand-on nature of many clock-hour programs, the change often results in a “substandard education” that “puts students and taxpayers at risk.”

Hundreds of professors and higher education groups disagreed. Some, particularly those representing for-profit programs, argued in public comments that the proposal exceeded the department’s authority and would burden institutions. Others said the new rules reflected an antiquated mindset about college modality, arguing that disallowing asynchronous options could limit access for students who benefit from the flexibility that online education provides.

While the department decided not to end asynchronous distance ed programs, the agency intends to keep a close eye on the courses.

“The department refined these final rules based upon extensive public comment on a notice of proposed rulemaking published over the summer,” department officials said in a news release. “However, we remind institutions that asynchronous clock hours cannot be used for homework and that there must be robust verification of regular and substantive interaction with an instructor.”

No Expanded TRIO

Although the decision not to expand eligibility for TRIO has fewer implications for colleges, the move is a blow for the TRIO directors and immigration equity advocates who have been working for years to open up the program.

Miriam Feldblum, executive director of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, told Inside Higher Ed that nearly 100,000 undocumented students graduate from high school each year, many of whom could benefit from TRIO services.

But Republicans opposed the idea. Six GOP members of Congress, including Virginia Foxx, a North Carolinian and former chair of the House education committee, blasted the concept in a letter to Secretary Miguel Cardona in August.

“The proposed expansion is a blatant attempt to provide additional taxpayer-funded services to those not seeking citizenship in the name of reducing ‘burden.’ The department’s proposed expansion will stretch funding thin and risk those currently eligible for TRIO,” they wrote.

Some college administrators and TRIO directors in red states are worried about the potential political backlash Biden’s new regulation could cause for their programs.

“The fighter in me thinks that this is a tough time to go to battle and have an unforced error or a target on our backs and [on] TRIO, given the contentious nature of immigration policy right now,” Geoffrey Garner, a TRIO program director from Oregon, said in at January 2024 advisory committee meeting. “We just think right now is not the best time for this proposal, as much as it breaks my heart to say that out loud.”

That advisory committee ended up backing the changes to expand some TRIO programs to undocumented students.

Education Department officials said its decision wasn’t due to political tensions. Rather, they said the proposal “was too narrow … in scope of additional populations to be served.”

Under the department’s proposed rule, high school students who aren’t citizens or permanent residents could qualify for Upward Bound, Talent Search and Educational Opportunity Centers but not Student Support Services or the McNair Scholars Program.

“An expansion of student eligibility under only certain TRIO programs would create confusion, as many grantees administer grants under more than one TRIO program,” officials wrote in the final rule. “Eligibility for only certain TRIO programs would increase administrative burden by requiring grantees to deny similarly situated noncitizens from participating under certain TRIO programs, but not others.”

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December 30, 2024
Univ. of Arizona Global Campus faculty respond to professor

In a recent article, “Dear Prospective UAGC Students: Stay Away,” a professor from the University of Arizona discourages students from attending the University of Arizona Global Campus (UAGC). Unfortunately, this article was based on the author’s perspective rather than on facts and thus lacked the academic rigor of factual data from credible sources. This opinion piece was a collection of baseless assumptions, completely overlooking the true mission of UAGC, its faculty, and the diverse students we proudly serve. Frankly, the article has no merit.

There is power in knowledge and truth. As such, the article could have accurately depicted the realities of UAGC instead of relying on inaccurate critiques about educational quality, enrollment numbers, adjunct faculty, and alleged student dissatisfaction. To set the record straight, UAGC is committed to providing online higher education for non-traditional students, including working adults, military personnel, parents, and underserved communities. Our students juggle countless responsibilities, and UAGC offers the flexibility and support they need. UAGC is vital in making higher education accessible to those who need it most, breaking barriers that traditional institutions often ignore.

Furthermore, UAGC is unwavering in its commitment to supporting students, staff, and faculty, ensuring consistent educational quality and professional growth. As we continue to evolve, we focus on transparent evolution and collaboration, learning from past oversights to create an environment where our students can improve employment opportunities. Our pursuit of high-quality education is not a destination but an ongoing journey to which UAGC is deeply committed. Like any reputable university, we conduct regular course and program reviews, embrace continuous improvement, and acknowledge areas for development as a perpetual process. This commitment to educational quality is a cornerstone of our institution, ensuring our students receive the best education possible and can be confident in our dedication to their success.

The UAGC faculty, the backbone of our institution, is growing increasingly weary of misleading and disparaging remarks against the university and the faculty. It is time to move forward constructively and collegially. In the name of higher education, we implore you to stop defaming our university, staff, faculty, and students. To that end, we welcome meeting and educating any skeptical faculty or staff on our university’s mission and approach to serving non-traditional adult learners. Above all, we’re eager to clear any misconceptions by providing accurate data, helping to ensure that your words align more closely with the truth moving forward.

As we look to the future (Dr. Cabrera), the late President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who signed the unprecedented G.I. Bill into legislation, stated, “A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor” (Roosevelt, n.d.).”

Yvonne M Lozano, Ph.D. UAGC Faculty Council Co-Chair
Teresa Handy, Ph.D. UAGC Faculty Council Representative
Deanna Lauer, UAGC Associate Faculty Council Representative
Carl Marquez, UAGC Faculty Council Representative
Cara Metz, Ph.D. UAGC Faculty Council Co-Chair
Darla Branda, Ph.D. UAGC Program Chair

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December 28, 2024
Biden scraps debt relief plans, other regs

President Biden has so far forgiven $180 billion in student loans for 4.9 million borrowers. Much more relief is unlikely now.

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

The Biden administration’s ambitious plans to provide debt relief for millions of Americans is officially dead along with a number of other proposed regulatory changes.

The administration said Friday it’s withdrawing two debt relief proposals from consideration. The Education Department had been reviewing thousands of comments on the plans and preparing to finalize at least one proposal before Friday’s announcement. The Associated Press first reported on the decision.

The department is also scraping its proposal to amend Title IX to prohibit blanket bans barring transgender students from participating in the sport consistent with their gender identity. That proposal proved controversial, receiving more than 150,000 comments and prompting legal challenges to the department’s separate overhaul of Title IX. added

“In light of the comments received and those various pending court cases, the department has determined not to regulate on this issue at this time,” officials wrote in a notice on the Federal Register. added

The department also said Friday that it’s abandoning the effort to update the rules for accreditation, state authorization and cash management. Regulatory proposals were hashed out in the spring but have stalled since. Proposals to gather more data about distance education and open up college-prep programs to undocumented students appear to be moving forward. added

The department said terminating the rule-making process or those three areas will “allow for additional evaluation of recent changes in other regulations and industry practices.” added

The debt relief plans have been in the works since summer 2023 after the Supreme Court struck down President Biden’s first attempt at providing student loan forgiveness. Republicans and other critics said these latest debt relief plans, which would have benefited 36 million Americans, were unconstitutional and amounted to an unfair wealth transfer.

Education Department officials maintain that they have the authority to forgive student loans for borrowers who meet certain criteria or are facing financial hardship, but they concluded that they don’t have the time to implement the proposals before Biden leaves office Jan. 20.

“With the time remaining in this administration, the Department is focused on several priorities including court-ordered settlements and helping borrowers manage the final elements of the return to repayment,” officials wrote in a Federal Register notice. “At this time the Department intends to commit its limited operational resources to helping at-risk borrowers return to repayment successfully.”

Withdrawing the rule “will assure agency flexibility in reexamining the issues,” officials added. The move means that the incoming administration would have to start from scratch on a rulemaking process rather than just rewrite the pending proposal.

Some Republican attorneys general sued the administration over one of the plans, which would have provided targeted debt relief to borrowers who owe more than they initially borrowed or have been repaying their loans for more than 20 years, among other groups. That plan was blocked by a federal judge before the department could finalize it.

The department’s decision came on the same day the Biden administration announced another round of loan forgiveness. The Education Department announced Friday morning that it would forgive loans for 55,000 borrowers who reached eligibility through Public Service Loan Forgiveness. A program created in 2007 and retooled under Biden, PSLF relieves an individual’s remaining debt if they properly complete 120 monthly payments while working full-time in a public interest career like law enforcement, health care or education.

Including Friday’s batch of relief, which totaled $4.28 billion, the Biden administration has now forgiven $180 billion in student loans for 4.9 million borrowers.

Borrower advocacy groups like the Student Borrower Protection Center say that while they are deeply disappointed the Biden administration has to withdraw its regulations in response to legal pushback from right-wing attorneys, they appreciate Biden’s efforts and celebrate the regulations he was able to finalize.

“President Biden’s fixes to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and other student loan relief programs have once again delivered lasting change and will benefit millions of borrowers for years to come,” said Persis Yu, deputy executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center, in a statement. But, at the same time, Yu added that “the actions of right-wing attorneys general have blocked tens of millions of borrowers from accessing critical student debt relief.”

Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers, including Senator Dr. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, described Biden’s unfinalized attempts at student debt relief as a “scheme to transfer student debt onto American taxpayers.”

“The Biden-Harris administration’s student loan schemes were always a lie,” the senator said in a statement. “With today’s latest withdrawal, they are admitting these schemes were nothing more than a dishonest attempt to buy votes by transferring debt onto taxpayers who never went to college or worked to pay off their loans.”

Jessica Blake contributed to this report.

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December 20, 2024
Books reviewed in 2024

Mostly, I’m interested in what books you read in 2024.

Let me know if there is any overlap between the books I reviewed and what you read.

Here are the books I wrote about in 2024:

‘Never Enough’ and the Roots of Our College Student Mental Health Crisis: Can universities be a counterweight to a toxic achievement culture?

Failure, Academic Careers and ‘Right Kind of Wrong’: Care to share your career failures with our Inside Higher Ed community?

The Ed-Tech ‘Blood in the Machine’: Can the 19th-century Luddite movement help us think about the corporate digitization of education?

An Imagined ‘Economics in America’ Dinner Conversation on Inequality in Higher Education: What I’d ask Sir Angus Deaton.

U niversities and the ‘Material World’: What is higher education made of?

Scaled Online Learning as Higher Ed’s ‘Pandora’s Box’: And other imperfect academic equivalencies inspired by a fantastic book on the history of prestige TV.

Is ‘Filterworld’ Coming for Higher Ed? On algorithms and educators.

Campuses, Climate Change and ‘How Infrastructure Works’:
Understanding how the infrastructural systems that enable our campuses to run are dependent on stable climate.

Reading ‘On the Move’ and Thinking Mostly About Climate Change:
Another excellent book to place in conversation with Universities on Fire.

‘The Uninhabitable Earth’ and the Adaptable Campus: Climate change and higher education’s built environment.

Higher Ed and ‘Charleston: Race, Water, and the Coming Storm’: Climate change and the eight most interesting colleges and universities in the U.S.

‘The Displacements’ and the Need for a Climate Change Academic Novel: A call to combine climate and campus fiction.

‘The English Experience’ Rounds Out the ‘Dear Committee’ Trilogy:
Wondering how this novel, which is in part about teaching students to write, might have been different if written after the release of ChatGPT.

‘Supercommunicators’ and the Challenges of Hybrid Professional Academic Work: Why hybrid university work is better but feels worse, and where learning to be better digital communicators may help.

Why Universities Need to Decarbonize ‘Five Times Faster’: Higher education and the economics of climate change.

The Election, ‘Our Final Warning’ and Us: Where Universities on Fire meets Six Degrees of Climate Emergency.

‘How the World Ran Out of Everything’ and ‘Recentering Learning’: Economic and higher education lessons from the pandemic.

University Culture and ‘The Geek Way’: What higher ed should absorb and reject from tech culture.

Introducing ‘Recentering Learning’: The sections, chapter titles and authors from our new co-edited book.

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December 20, 2024
AI-authored abstracts “more authentic” than human-written ones

Journal abstracts written with the help of artificial intelligence are perceived as more authentic, clear and compelling than those created solely by academics, a study suggests.

While many academics may scorn the idea of outsourcing article summaries to generative AI, a new investigation by researchers at Ontario’s University of Waterloo found peer reviewers rated abstracts written by humans—but paraphrased using generative AI—far more highly than those authored without algorithmic assistance.

Abstracts written entirely by AI—in which a large language model was asked to provide a summary of a paper—were rated slightly less favorably on qualities such as honesty, clarity, reliability and accuracy, although not significantly so, explains the study, published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior: Artificial Humans.

For instance, the mean score for honesty for an entirely robot-written abstract was 3.32, based on a five-point Likert scale (where 5 is the highest rating), but just 3.38 for a human-written one.

For an AI-paraphrased abstract, it was 3.82, according to the paper, which asked 17 experienced peer reviewers in the field of computer game design to assess a range of abstracts for readability and guess whether they were AI-written.

On some measures, such as perceived clarity and compellingness, entirely AI-written abstracts did better than entirely human-written summaries, although were not seen as superior to AI-paraphrased work.

One of the study’s co-authors, Lennart Nacke, from Waterloo’s Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business, told Times Higher Education that the study’s results showed “AI-paraphrased abstracts were well received” but added that the “researchers should view AI as an augmentation tool” rather than a “replacement for researcher expertise.”

“Although peer reviewers were not able to reliably distinguish between AI and human writing, they were able to clearly assess the quality of underlying research described in the manuscript,” he said.

“You could say that one key takeaway from our research is that researchers should use AI to enhance clarity and precision in their writing. They should not use it as an autonomous content producer. The human researcher should remain the intellectual driver of the work.”

Emphasizing that “researchers should be the primary drivers of their manuscript writing,” Nacke continued, “AI [can] polish language and improve readability, but it cannot replace the deep understanding that comes with years of experience in a research field.”

Stressing the importance of having distinctive academic writing—a desire expressed by several reviewers—he added that, “In our AI era, it’s perhaps more essential than ever to have some human touch or subjective expressions from human researchers in research writing.”

“Because this is really what makes academia a creative, curious and collaborative community,” said Nacke, adding it would be a pity if scholars became “impersonal paper-producing machines.”

“Leave that last part to the Daleks,” he said.

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December 20, 2024
The hypocrisy of community-engaged research (opinion)
Any critique about the neoliberal university ought to confront and acknowledge its colonial roots. Victoria Reyes, in her book Academic Outsider (Stanford University Press, 2022), highlights that higher education was never designed for the global majority, particularly people of color from low-income backgrounds. It was built by and for the elite—predominantly white, cisgender, male and affluent individuals—whose privilege shaped the norms that dominate higher education today. These norms actively harm oppressed communities. People of color in positions of power within higher education, such as tenured faculty or administrators, often perpetuate these systems of oppression when they conform to institutional norms instead of challenging them.

The positivist research paradigm (a.k.a. positivism) sustains oppression in academia by prioritizing quantifiable data while dismissing subjective experiences and social contexts in pursuit of “objective” truths. This fragmented approach erases the complexity of lived experiences and ignores the interplay of privilege and oppression in shaping identities. Positivism fuels deficit-based research, white saviorism and helicopter science, invalidating diverse epistemologies and methodologies. Deficit-based research highlights negative conditions in oppressed communities, framing them as lacking while ignoring systemic causes of inequities, such as settler colonialism and structural racism. Legacies of positivism reinforce harmful stereotypes and stigmatization toward communities of color in higher education.

In contrast, a transformative paradigm offers an alternative to positivism by centering the voices and experiences of oppressed communities. It prioritizes knowledge democracy and dismantling of power imbalances that have historically excluded marginalized communities from the research process. Over the past 25 years, community-engaged research (CEnR) and community-based participatory research (CBPR) have emerged as crucial approaches in health education, public health and the social sciences to address social inequities. Both approaches emphasize equitable, reciprocal community-academic partnerships, to foster genuine collaboration and systemic change.

As a woman of color from the Global South and an immigrant scientist who studies health equity, I have witnessed firsthand both the transformative potential of CEnR in addressing social injustice and the discriminatory practices that neoliberal universities perpetuate in my own research with low-income and immigrant communities of color. While CEnR and CBPR are integral to addressing complex health and social inequities by empowering communities and fostering sustainable interventions, a question remains: Can these approaches thrive within the neoliberal university?

White Saviorism and the Neoliberal University

Unfortunately, the rise of CEnR within neoliberal universities, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, was driven not by a genuine shift toward equity, but by a desire for funding and institutional prestige. As Megan Snider Bailey notes, “Market forces … shape university-community partnerships,” reinforcing a colonial mindset rooted in the white savior complex. This complex positions universities as gatekeepers of resources and legitimacy, exploiting oppressed communities under the appearance of “helping” them to secure funding from entities like the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute.

The white savior complex describes privileged individuals, often white, who see themselves as “saviors” or “benevolent rescuers” of oppressed communities. This paternalistic mindset creates exploitative dynamics and replicates patterns of subjugation. For instance, universities often profit significantly from research with oppressed communities, taking up to 50 percent of grant funds as indirect costs for expenses such as facility maintenance and administration. These funds rarely return to the communities that need them most. Instead, universities divert these resources to maintain their own operations, exposing the hypocrisy of institutions that claim to support equity and justice. These exploitative practices raise a critical question: Who benefits the most from the oppression and illness of communities of color?

The answer often points back to the universities themselves. They profit from the appearance of equity while perpetuating social injustice. The harm caused by white saviorism extends beyond finances. Transactional and extractive research methods are normalized in the neoliberal university. These methods reinforce patterns of subjugation and undermine long-term partnerships that could foster social justice and radical healing. As scholars have shown, a human-centered, liberatory approach must replace the transactional and extractive methods often associated with white supremacy and settler colonialism.

Precarity in the Academy

Universities that claim to promote social justice and CEnR often perpetuate exploitative practices and precarious working conditions. They frequently hire community leaders, promotoras de salud (community health workers), students and scholars of color on short-term contracts with little job security and no benefits. These precarious positions create dependency on higher institutions that exploit labor while controlling access to resources.

As Anne Cafer and Meagen Rosenthal explain, moral outrage often drives short-term involvement in community projects. CEnR that fails to address inequitable power dynamics becomes another tool of oppression disguised as allyship. Superficial, performative community-academic partnerships deepen mistrust of academic institutions in oppressed communities and reinforce power dynamics and social injustice.

Raquel Wright-Mair and Samuel Museus highlight how academia’s power hierarchies instill a fear of retaliation, silencing junior scholars of color from challenging systemic inequities. Scholars of color are often forced to align their work with institutional goals while sickening their bodies and damaging their mental health. The market-driven model of the neoliberal university prioritizes profits and productivity, limiting justice-oriented research. To address these issues in higher education, we must ask urgent questions:
- What can we do to dismantle white-led initiatives that perpetuate dependence and subjugation?
- How can institutions eliminate the white savior complex embedded in their structures?
- How can we ensure fair calculation of indirect costs in CEnR that prevent the exploitation of community needs for grant funding and institutional prestige?
Recommendations for Conducting Respectful and Liberatory CEnR

The neoliberal university perpetuates the white savior complex, commodifies community needs and exploits people of color through short-term appointments designed to maintain systemic inequities. Therefore, it is pivotal to embrace the liberatory nature of CEnR that prioritizes social justice and structural change.
- Transformative practices. Researchers must critically reflect on how their own positionality and privilege influence the liberation or oppression of marginalized communities. Universities must recognize and amplify the expertise of community members in shaping research agendas and outcomes. Furthermore, institutions must actively embrace linguistic justice and culturally relevant methods, respecting the languages, traditions and cultural contexts of the communities they engage. By prioritizing these practices, institutions can foster decolonial, respectful and inclusive collaborations that effectively challenge and dismantle oppressive systems in higher education.
- Accountability is essential. Funding agencies must prioritize equitable representation and tangible benefits for communities over superficial metrics when evaluating CEnR. Neoliberal universities must stop exploiting community researchers and scholars of color through precarious, short-term appointments that reinforce tokenization and systemic inequities. Universities often hire people of color temporarily to build trust for community-academic partnerships while maintaining the overrepresentation of white faculty. To disrupt this cycle, funding agencies must require universities to intentionally hire and retain leaders, scholars and students from oppressed communities, ensuring they have job security. Empowering these voices permits CEnR to address community-specific needs, build local infrastructure and foster authentic partnerships rooted in equity, respect and shared power, dismantling the traditional hierarchies of academic research.
- Rejecting unpaid labor is nonnegotiable. Unpaid labor perpetuates inequities, exploiting oppressed communities. Ethical CEnR demands equitable compensation, collaboration and empowerment, ensuring all participants are treated with dignity and are compensated fairly. These principles are critical to advancing liberation and driving systemic change.
Advancing CEnR that truly serves oppressed communities requires dismantling the colonial, patriarchal and exploitative structures underpinning higher education. Embracing a transformative paradigm prioritizes genuine representation, community needs and liberation over market-driven motives, creating a model for lasting social change and liberation in an increasingly inequitable world.
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December 20, 2024