Tag: Jobs

Tapping Alumni to Be Career Mentors for Students

For students at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, alumni mentors are becoming embedded in their experience. A recently launched mentorship program pairs each rising junior with a graduate from the college to provide advice and encouragement as they finish their last two years of college.

The initiative, part of Gettysburg’s reimagining of career development, helps students build a professional network before they leave college and hopefully eases the transition into life after graduation, said Billy Ferrell, director of external relations in Gettysburg’s Center for Career Engagement.

What’s the need: Professional mentors can be an asset for early-career professionals, offering insights into navigating the workforce and their specific industry, as well as personal support and encouragement. But a majority of Americans say they don’t have a mentor, according to a 2023 survey by the University of Phoenix, and one-third of respondents said a lack of mentorship has held them back in their careers.

Within higher education, many students are asking their institutions for assistance in identifying role models.

A spring 2024 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed found that 29 percent of students believe their college or university should focus more on connecting students to alumni and other potential mentors. And a 2023 student survey found that 45 percent of students think their career center should help them find a professional mentor.

However, only a fraction of students have participated in a formal mentoring program, either through their college or outside the institution, according to a 2021 survey by Inside Higher Ed.

How it works: Gettysburg’s Alumni Mentoring Program launched this fall with the Class of 2027, who coincidentally were the first class to participate in the college’s guided co-curricular pathways, Ferrell said.

Students could opt to add an alumni mentor to their advising team, which already includes a faculty adviser, career adviser and co-curricular adviser, who coaches students on their pathway. Alumni advising is focused on the student’s career but could include job exploration, the postcollege transition, networking and industry-specific trends, Ferrell said.

The goal is for students to learn “real world” skills to navigate life after college, according to the college’s website.

Students will meet with their mentor at least once a month starting in October and conclude in March, Ferrell said.

Gettysburg recruited mentors through email campaigns, social media posts and the alumni magazine, Ferrell said. Interested alumni signed up through connectGettysburg, the college’s career networking platform, and completed a short intake survey. Students completed a similar questionnaire and a computer algorithm made the mentor match, Ferrell said.

Mentors participated in an online training module to prepare them to take on an advising role. Additionally, the college established a handbook for mentor pairs to outline expectations for the relationship and offer topical sessions for students to choose from to guide conversations with mentors.

These resources can address a common barrier to mentorship for students: a lack of awareness of what the relationship entails. A 2021 survey by Inside Higher Ed found that among students who lacked a mentor, 45 percent didn’t know what they would ask a mentor and 27 percent didn’t know what they would do with one.

What’s next: Eighty-one juniors and alumni are participating in the initial program, and Gettysburg will survey students and alumni throughout the term to gauge the effectiveness of the initiative and ensure students are getting the kind of support they’re looking for, Ferrell said.

Next year, Gettysburg will expand the program to junior and senior-level students.

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October 6, 2025
UNC Professor Accused of Advocating Political Violence Reinstated

University officials found “no basis” that Dixon posed a threat or violated university policy.

Marin Herold/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Dwayne Dixon, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was reinstated Friday after the university performed a “thorough threat assessment,” Dean Stoyer, vice chancellor for communications and marketing, said in a statement.

Dixon was placed on leave Monday following allegations that he was an advocate for political violence.

“The Carolina Behavioral Threat Assessment and Management Team consulted with the UNC System security office and with local law enforcement, undertaking a robust, swift and efficient review of all the evidence. We have found no basis to conclude that he poses a threat to University students, staff, and faculty, or has engaged in conduct that violates University policy,” Stoyer said in a statement. “As a result, the University is reinstating Professor Dixon to his faculty responsibilities, effective immediately.”

Dixon is a teaching associate professor of Asian and Middle Eastern studies at UNC Chapel Hill, and he’s been active at counterprotests to alt-right rallies, including at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017. He’s also a strong advocate for gun rights and used to be a member of the Silver Spring Redneck Revolt, a chapter of the now-disbanded antifascist, antiracist, anticapitalist political group Redneck Revolt. Andrew Kolvet, a spokesperson for the late Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA, called for Dixon to be fired in an X post because of these affiliations.

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October 3, 2025
We Don’t Need to Retreat From the Challenge of AI in Schools

One of the chief pleasures of traveling to schools and campuses to talk about More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI and my approaches to how we should approach the teaching of writing is getting the chance to see what other places are doing with the challenge of working in a world of generative AI technology.

My travels so far this semester have been very encouraging. It seems clear that we are in a new phase of reasoned consideration following on an earlier period of worry and uncertainty. I never saw outright panic, but there was a whiff of doom in the air.

There may be a selection bias in terms of the institutions that would invite someone like me to come work with them, but there is a clear impulse to figure out how to move forward according to institutional values, rather than being stuck in a defensive posture.

As I declared way back in December 2022, “ChatGPT can’t kill anything worth preserving.” The work of what must be preserved and how is definitely underway.

I want to share some impressions of what I think is working well at the institutions that are moving forward, so others may consider how they might want to do this work on their own campuses.

Going on Offense by Living Your Values

One clear commonality for successfully addressing the current challenges is by identifying the core institutional values and then making them central to the ongoing discussions about how instruction and institutional operations must evolve.

As one example, at my recent visit to Iona University, I was introduced to their framework of agency, expression and responsibility.

“Agency” is one of my favorite words when talking about learning, period, and in this case it means communicating to students that it is ultimately the students themselves who must choose the path of their own educations, including the use of AI technology. I’ve recently been speaking more and more about AI in education as a demand-side issue, where students need to see the pitfalls of outsourcing their learning. Agency puts the responsibility where it belongs: on students themselves.

Expression represents a belief that the ultimate goal of one’s education is to develop our unique voice as part of the larger world in which we work and live. Writing isn’t just producing text but using the tools of expression—including text—to convey our points of view to the world. Where LLMs use substitutes for or obscure our personal expression, they should be avoided.

Responsibility is related to agency in the “with great power comes great responsibility” sense. Students are encouraged to consider the practical and ethical dimensions of using the technology.

At other stops I’ve seen similar orientations, though often with wrinkles unique to local contexts. One common value is rather than retreating to assessments that can be monitored in order to prevent cheating, the goal is to figure out how to give life to the kinds of educational experiences we know to be meaningful to learning.

If you start with the values, things like policy can be evaluated against something meaningful and enduring. The conversations become more productive because everyone is working from a shared base.

I know this can be done, because I’ve been visiting institutions working on this problem for more than 18 months, and the progress is real.

Collective Spirit and Collaborative Action

Another common sign of progress is institutional leadership that communicates a desire to take a collective approach to tackle the issues and then puts specific, tangible resources behind this call to make collaborative action more possible and effective.

Several institutions I’ve visited have carved out spots for some version of AI faculty fellows, where these fellows are given freedom to explore the technology and its specific implications to their disciplines, before coming back to a group and institutional setting where this learning is shared.

To work, these must be more than groups tasked to figure out how to integrate AI technology into the university. I have not visited any institution that has done this—they are unlikely to invite someone like me—but I have been corresponding with people whose institutions are doing this who are looking for advice, and it seems like a sure route to a divided institution.

At my Iona visit, they took this approach to the next level by putting on a one-day conference and inviting community educators from all walks to hear not just yours truly, but also the AI fellows and other faculty discuss a variety of issues.

These conferences don’t solve every problem in a day, but simply demonstrating to the broader public that you’re working the problem is deeply encouraging.

Room and Respect for Difference

One of my favorite parts of my visits is the chance to talk with the faculty on a campus who have been wrestling with the same challenges I’m spending my time on. At the base level, we share the same values when it comes to what learning looks like and the importance of things like agency and transparency to achieving those things.

But when it comes to the application and use of generative AI technology to achieve these outcomes, there are often significant differences. I share my perspective, they share theirs, and while I don’t think we necessarily change each other’s minds, a great appreciation for a different perspective is achieved.

It’s a model of what I always based my courses in, the academic conversation, where the goal of writing and speaking is to gradually increase the amount of illumination on the subject at hand. We’re having a discussion, not a “debate.”

I am far more skeptical and circumspect about the utility of generative AI when it comes to teaching and learning than many. I often point out that anyone who is using the technology productively today established a whole host of capacities (or what I call a “practice”) in the absence of this technology, so it stands to reason that we should still be educated primarily without interacting with or using the technology.

But I’ve also seen tangible demonstrations of integrating the capacities of generative AI tools in ways that seem to genuinely open potential new avenues. These people need to keep experimenting, just as those of us who want to find ways to do our work in the absence of AI should be empowered to do so.

Do More Than ‘Doing School’

Maybe this belongs as part of the first point of “going on offense,” but the successes I’ve seen have come from a willingness to fundamentally question the system of schooling that has resulted in students primarily viewing their educations through a transactional lens.

In many cases, generative AI outputs satisfy the transaction of school in ways that mean students learn literally nothing. We’ve all read the viral articles about students using AI for everything they do.

But I can report from my visits to many different institutions and talking to people working at many more that this is not universally true. Many students are eager to engage in activities that help them learn. It then becomes the responsibility of schools and instructors to give students something worth doing.

Retreating to analog forms because they can be policed is a missed opportunity to rethink and redo things we know were not working particularly well.

There is not endpoint to this rethinking. Frankly, I find this energizing, and it’s clear lots of others do, too. This energy is something we can use to help students.

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October 3, 2025
Indian Students Look Elsewhere After H-1B Visa Price Shock

The new $100,000 fee for H-1B visas could prove to be the final straw for Indian students’ plans to study in the U.S., with other destinations set to benefit as a result.

The move by the Trump administration—the latest in a long list of restrictions affecting international students—is set to impact Indians the most, given they account for more than 70 percent of H-1B recipients.

Many students enroll in courses with a view to progressing on to the visa, working in industries such as Silicon Valley.

“The sentiment among prospective … students is pretty dismal after this announcement,” said Sonya Singh, founder of SIEC, an education consultancy.

“The queries and applications for U.S. universities have seen a significant drop, and students are considering alternatives. Destinations such as the U.K., Germany and Australia are being explored, and Canada is proposing a dedicated work permit for current and potential U.S. H-1B holders. All these initiatives and policy changes are sure to bring about a massive shift in demand for the U.S. as a destination.”

Sagar Bahadur, executive director for Asia at international education consultancy Acumen, said the debate has created “a lot of talk, anxiety and perception-building” among prospective students.

He noted that students are increasingly deferring study plans, exploring alternative destinations or considering “transnational pathways” that allow them to start degrees elsewhere before moving to the U.S. if conditions improve.

Pankaj Mittal, secretary general of the Association of Indian Universities, said the fee hike was “shaking things up for Indian students eyeing the U.S. for education and careers.”

With uncertain job prospects and shifting policies, she argued, parents may no longer be willing to pay high tuition fees.

“Countries like Germany, Canada, Australia, U.K., Singapore and Malaysia may gain traction due to stable policies, work opportunities and affordability,” Mittal said, highlighting Germany’s free or low-cost tuition and work allowances as a growing draw for Indian students.

She also warned of wider repercussions for international collaboration. “This decision may impact partnerships with U.S. institutions as Indian universities explore alternatives and strengthen ties with European, Canadian or Australian institutions. STEM and health-care sectors may be particularly affected due to high H-1B dependency.”

Early signs of a shift are already emerging. Narender Thakur of the University of Delhi noted declining interest in short U.S. master’s courses in computing and engineering, fields closely tied to H-1B pathways.

He suggested that students may increasingly consider other global destinations or branch campuses in India, while research partnerships with U.S. institutions could slow. Opportunities in entrepreneurship and remote work may also appeal to students deterred from U.S. employment.

Andrew Morran, head of politics and international relations at London Metropolitan University, said the policy would “particularly hit Indian students, who last year made up 71 percent of international student applications, according to U.S. government statistics.”

He described the move as part of a broader trend restricting access to U.S. universities and warned it could make study in the U.S. “even more the preserve of the elite and the wealthy” while undermining classroom diversity.

“It will also impact the student experience, as diversity is undermined and the shared experience of a global classroom is weakened further,” Morran said. Universities might seek students elsewhere, he added, but the hostile political climate and attacks on immigration could blunt recruitment.

“Talent gaps cannot be filled overnight. Meanwhile, the rest of the world will take every opportunity it has to steal these students,” he said.

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October 3, 2025
A Defining Choice for Higher Ed (opinion)

Ask people at Columbia, Harvard or UCLA how things are going for higher education, and they might rightly say that things are quite dismal. Those places have been early targets in the Trump administration’s ongoing effort to bring colleges and universities to heel.

Funding cutoffs, intrusive demands for data and investigations have made life pretty difficult for those universities and some others. In addition, they have had to confront the excruciating choice of whether to defy the administration’s demands or try to reach a settlement.

At Columbia, Harvard and UCLA, budgets have been squeezed. Uncomfortable adjustments have been made. Reputations and careers have been damaged or ruined.

While some college presidents have publicly condemned what the administration has been doing, many other college and university leaders have tried to keep their heads down, to say nothing or do nothing to join with and support places that have been prominent on the administration’s hit list. But the days of duck and cover in American higher education may be coming to a close.

On Sunday, The Washington Post reported that the administration was considering a new strategy in its dealings with colleges and universities. The plan is to change the way the federal government awards research grants, “giving a competitive advantage to schools that pledge to adhere to the values and policies of the Trump administration on admissions, hiring and other matters.”

Then, on Wednesday, the administration sent letters to nine universities asking them to sign a 10-page “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.” In exchange for getting preferential treatment for federal funds, among other benefits, colleges would agree “to freeze tuition for five years, cap the enrollment of international students and commit to strict definitions of gender.” They also must, per The New York Times, “change their governance structures to prohibit anything that would ‘punish, belittle and even spark violence against conservative ideas.’”

The “Compact for Academic Excellence” seeks to get colleges and universities to sign onto President Trump’s priorities all at once. That means that the kinds of excruciating choices faced by a few colleges and universities will soon be coming to a campus near you.

Higher education is now facing an unprecedented moment of truth, with institutions needing to decide whether to stick to their commitments to independence and academic freedom at the cost of their financial well-being and capacity to carry out research, or to show their loyalty to the administration at a cost to their integrity and mission.

As I see it, there really is no choice. Colleges and universities must say no. They should do so now, when resistance might dissuade the administration from going any further with its plan.

If colleges relent, they will forfeit whatever moral capital they have left and send the message that the pursuit of truth matters less than loyalty to a political agenda and that colleges and universities can be made to give up their independence if the price of freedom is high enough.

I am enough of a realist not to take odds on what choices colleges and universities will make. And I know that resistance of the kind I am advocating may be very costly for students, faculty and staff, as well as the communities served by campuses that push back.

But as journalist Nathan M. Greenfield explained in 2021, “Academic freedom is the sine qua non of universities in common law countries as well as those in Western Europe and, indeed, is central to the functioning of universities in all but those countries with repressive governments.” Yale Law School professor Robert Post explains that “academic freedom rests on a bargain between society and institutions of higher education. Universities are granted independence so they can produce two necessities of modern life: knowledge and education.”

The very idea that the Trump administration is seeking to compel universities to adhere to the values and policies that it prefers suggests how little regard it has for either knowledge or education. Post gets it right when he says, “Democracy would become a farce, and the value of self-government meaningless, if the state could manipulate the knowledge available to its citizens.”

In 1957, Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter approvingly cited a statement that identified four conditions for higher education to thrive: universities must be free to determine who may teach, what can be taught, how it is taught and who will be admitted. “For society’s good,” Justice Frankfurter wrote, “inquiries into [academic and social] problems, speculations about them, stimulation in others of reflection upon them, must be left as unfettered as possible. Political power must abstain from intrusion into this activity of freedom, pursued in the interest of wise government and the people’s wellbeing.”

The Trump administration is not displaying such restraint in dealing with all of American higher education. The Washington Post quotes Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, who said that the new policy is a frontal “assault … on institutional autonomy, on ideological diversity, on freedom of expression and academic freedom.”

“Suddenly, to get a grant,” Mitchell continued, “you need to not demonstrate merit, but ideological fealty to a particular set of political viewpoints … I can’t imagine a university in America that would be supportive of this.”

We may soon see whether he is right. But he may have framed the issue incorrectly.

The question is not whether America’s colleges and universities will support a clearly unconstitutional overreach by the Trump administration. The question is whether they will go along with it by signing on to the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.”

The administration is asking colleges and universities, “’What are the things that you believe? What are your values?” Justice Frankfurter must be rolling over in his grave.

We can only hope that the first nine universities asked to agree to the administration’s latest intrusion into higher education will follow his wisdom and refuse to do so. And other colleges and universities should make clear now that if they are asked to follow suit, they too will say no.

Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College.

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October 3, 2025
Tuition Discounts Fuel Higher Ed Skepticism
Tuition discounting is a tactic private colleges have long used to control a primary revenue stream. But over the past decade, an increasingly precarious financial picture—driven in part by stagnating state funding and tuition caps—has pushed public institutions to adopt tuition-discounting policies, too.

According to an issue brief from the Strada Education Foundation, the share of first-time, full-time undergraduates receiving institutional grant aid at public four-year institutions increased from 49 percent to 62 percent between 2014–15 and 2021–22. The average discount rates increased from 24 percent to 31 percent over the same period.

Strada argued in the brief that tuition discounting sows confusion about the real cost of college among students and their parents. The practice also fuels increased public skepticism about the value of a college degree. It warned that growing financial uncertainty for public higher education could make the problem worse.

“State postsecondary budgets soon may face new strains stemming from federal actions, demographic shifts, and broader fiscal pressures,” the brief said. “Without intentional alignment between states and institutions, this environment could drive even more aggressive tuition discounting in the years ahead—further complicating cost transparency for students, public missions, and the perceived value of education.”

Tuition discounts allow institutions to maintain financial stability and recruit academically strong or underrepresented students who may be enticed by a big discount presented as a scholarship. However, increases in merit-based aid can “favor wealthier or out-of-state students at the expense of low-income, in-state residents,” according to Strada’s brief.

“These practices also leave students, families, and citizens confused and without a transparent understanding of the cost of higher education,” the report said, noting that low-income and first-generation college students are especially vulnerable to uncertainty around tuition prices. “As the debate over the value of postsecondary education continues, exaggerated prices and confusion over actual costs weigh heavily on public trust and whether ‘college is worth it.’”

The report recommends a set of guiding principles to address tuition discounts:
- Transparency and clarity for families;
- Alignment between state and institutional aid;
- Regular assessment of aid strategies;
- Ensuring discounting supports public mission and access goals, not just revenue; and
- Avoiding blunt, one-size-fits-all approaches.
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October 3, 2025
Readers Respond on Advising The Girl
(Program note: In order to reduce the competition for attention, this column’s Monday and Thursday schedule has been changed to Monday and Friday.)

Monday’s post outlined The Girl’s many academic strengths and mourned some changes in the field that make pursuing her preferred career a high-risk enterprise. She’s a wildly talented reader and writer—insightful, distinctive and often funny—who would make a great English professor if the world still offered jobs like those in any meaningful number. She’s looking closely at an information science option. I asked my wise and worldly readers if they had any thoughts on advice I could offer her.

Luckily, I have the best readers ever. Folks responded thoughtfully and graciously. Some highlights and patterns:
- Readers within the library world responded with variations on “We love our jobs, but they’re getting scarcer, too.”
- Even there, though, hope could be found. A few pointed out that having a master’s degree in a discipline can be a selling point with academic libraries. They often suggested getting a foot in the door at a university library, then using the free tuition offered to staff to get the master’s in English. I have to admit that free tuition is a nifty benefit.
- They also pointed out that working full-time in a college or university library doesn’t preclude teaching the occasional English course on the side. Adjuncting for a living is brutal, but a course on the side—when the basic needs are met elsewhere—can be gratifying.
One wise and worldly reader took issue with the assumption that graduate programs are about getting jobs. As he put it,

“I tell students that, so long as you are going to grad school in a funded program, if no job in academia results, then you’ve had the privilege of spending fiveish years doing something that few people get to ever do. And then, in terms of career prospects, you’re right back where you were when you finished your B.A. Being in a funded grad program will allow you to tread water, financially speaking. So yes, you will be behind your friends from undergrad who went straight into careers and began building up equity in their homes and their 401(k)s, but that is the sacrifice one makes to get to spend time in grad school.”

Concur in part and dissent in part. (That’s language from the Supreme Court, from back when they used to explain their decisions.) It’s certainly true that the kind of extended reading of academic texts that grad students do is rare outside of the academy. And on good days, there can be real intellectual excitement. But I also remember a lot of posturing, preening, bluffing and one-upmanship that seemed as petty as would be found anywhere else. And while it’s true that a fellowship is a rare privilege, it’s also true that the opportunity cost of subsistence-level living for five or more years is shockingly high. So yes, it can be intellectually rewarding, but I suspect there are other ways to get that without being quite so broke.

Another reader reframed the issue, putting the field of study at the center:

“If I really believe in the importance of transmitting human culture across generations, then should I maintain that it’s worth doing only when it’s economically expedient? Would I have any real credibility with my students if I seemed to tell them, out of one side of my mouth, that reading Walden and Moby-Dick is a valuable use of their time and a potential source of future wisdom and happiness, and then also tell them, out of the other side of my mouth, that they should make career choices that are at odds with what they’re gleaning from these books—and also, by the way, not be bothered if those books disappear from their children’s and grandchildren’s civilization?”

It struck me as a variation on the much older idea of a calling. I’m sympathetic to that at some level—when I don’t write for a while, I feel out of tune—but I’ve seen the idea of a calling used to justify appalling levels of exploitation. While TG is wildly talented, she’s also pragmatic; her politics, like mine, are about rejecting poverty across the board, rather than romanticizing it. I consider her clear-sightedness a real strength. She wants to make an adult living, and I don’t blame her one bit.

On the opposite end, one reader suggested that she pick up some training in automotive repair, start working in a shop, and use her communication skills to move up over time. It’s an interesting theoretical point, and it brought back fond memories of Car Talk, but I don’t see her doing that. (She confirmed my hunch.)

High school teaching also showed up as a frequent option. Even as professor gigs seemingly vanish into the ether, many states have teacher shortages. As dual enrollment gains ground, opportunities for teaching at least introductory college-level courses may become easier to find. High school is a very different environment, but the option exists.

Several readers’ stories (or their children’s stories) started with traditional academic pathways and veered into institutional research (the in-house research office on campuses) or instructional design. Both fields draw on a general knowledge of the ways that higher ed works, and a rapport with faculty is helpful in both. The job market for instructional designers appears to be much healthier than the market for either librarians or humanities faculty. That may be because instructional design can lead to corporate training jobs, as well as jobs in the academy. A wider scope of potential options is not a bad thing.

Others made the point in various ways that career paths aren’t linear. One mentioned a daughter with a Ph.D. in physics who went on to become a successful patent attorney. Another started trying to be a librarian, switched to the tech world, got a Ph.D. in philosophy and now helps engineers with their people skills.

I had to smile at this argument, because I know it’s true. If you had told me, in the midst of my doctoral program, that I’d spend much of my career in community college administration, I would have looked at you quizzically. Yet here we are. Degrees matter most at the early stage; by a decade or two into a career, it’s not unusual for the job title to be pretty distant from the degree. But TG is at the early stage, so it still matters.

Thanks to everyone who wrote! I was gratified by the generosity of spirit that everyone showed. Best. Readers. Ever.
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October 3, 2025
NIH Fires 4 Directors After Putting Them on Leave

The directors felt they were fired as part of the administration’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion and for political reasons.

Wesley Lapointe/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Four directors at the National Institutes of Health who were placed on administrative leave earlier this year have now been fired, Science reported.

The ousted leaders led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, and the National Institute of Nursing Research. Tara Schwetz, the deputy director for program coordination, planning and strategic initiatives, was also fired. The directors were put on leave in the spring around the same time that the administration laid off thousands at the Department of Health and Human Services.

Science reported that the directors felt they were targeted as part of the administration’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion and for political reasons. Jeanne Marrazzo, the former NIAID director, took over for Anthony Fauci, a frequent target for Republicans who took issue with his approach to the COVID-19 pandemic. Marrazzo filed a whistleblower complaint in early September that in part accused NIH leadership of downplaying the value of vaccines, The New York Times reported.

“It’s not surprising, but it’s still incredibly disappointing,” Marrazzo told Science. “I would have been quite happy to serve under the new administration as long as we were allowed to do our jobs.”

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October 3, 2025
Duration-of-Status Rule Prompts Opposition From Commenters

A slew of public commenters derided the Department of Homeland Security’s proposal that would restrict how long international students can stay in the country.

The measure would alter the long-standing policy known as duration of status, which allows international students to stay in the U.S. until their course of study is complete. Among other concerns, commenters argued that the rule would unnecessarily restrict international students, who are already closely monitored by the government and their institutions of study. Many commenters also drew attention to the potential consequences for the health-care system and employers.

The proposed rule would instead cap the amount of time students could stay in the U.S. to just four years, though they would be able to request an extension from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. It would also prevent international students from changing their majors or transferring between U.S. institutions.

According to DHS, the proposal aims to lessen the number of students who overstay their F and J visas. However, NAFSA, the international education association, argued that research has shown that DHS overestimates overstay rates. The organization, along with other commenters, also noted that the Student Exchange and Visitor Information System—the online system that monitors international students—already alerts Immigration and Customs Enforcement if a student overstays their visa.

The comment period closed on Sept. 29. DHS will now have to review and respond to more than 15,700 comments before deciding whether to move forward with the elimination of duration of status.

More Than 4 Years

Numerous commenters noted that a significant number of students take more than four years to complete their undergraduate degree—and it’s incredibly rare to complete a Ph.D. in that length of time. That means a significant number of students will be at risk of being unable to complete their programs if they are unable to secure extensions.

Commenters noted a range of reasons they, their peers or their students have struggled to finish a degree in under four years, including medical and family emergencies, the death or departure of a faculty mentor, completing cooperative internships, and more.

Others pointed out that some programs are even intended to take longer than four years. Jessica Goswick, an architect and a lecturer, wrote that a B.Arch., a professional bachelor’s degree in architecture, is intended to be completed in five years. The University of Illinois system—one of several dozen institutions that opposed the rule in written comments—said that its main Urbana-Champaign campus has over 30 undergraduate programs requiring more than 120 credit hours.

“Limiting initial entry to four years would require students in these programs to take more than 15 credits every semester for four years, which would reduce performance and graduation rates,” the system’s comment reads. “Undergraduate students should be encouraged to take course loads appropriate for success rather than rush toward an arbitrary completion date determined by their date of entry to the United States.”

Several researchers and current Ph.D. students also stressed that graduate students frequently need more time to complete their research.

“Reducing this time for foreign student scientists would make it impossible for them to earn a Ph.D. in many fields, including my own field of neuroscience. Science takes years to build, develop, execute, and compile in order [to] share the information with the world and enrich the scientific community,” wrote Grace Swaim, a postdoctoral researcher at Yale University.

Although students would have the option to get their visas extended beyond the four-year cap, experts warned that doing so is costly, time-consuming and uncertain, and it would add to USCIS’s already-lengthy processing time—about 6.5 months—for such extensions, according to NAFSA. The University of Illinois system also emphasized that the rule would force the system to hire 13 new full-time and one part-time employee and spend over $2 million in the first year alone to apply for these extensions.

These added barriers could ultimately lead fewer students to want to study in the United States, commenters warned, which many faculty said would be a loss for their labs, their larger institutions and the country as a whole.

“These students not only make crucial contributions to the fundamental research in our department, but often end up filling important roles in industry, academia and national labs in the U.S. Others contribute to the international efforts unraveling the nature of matter and developing novel technologies even after returning to their home country,” wrote Sebastian Kuhn, chair of the physics department at Old Dominion University. “International graduate students are an indispensable contribution to the success of the U.S. research enterprise and the international standing of our country.”

Beyond the Campus

Other commenters shared that the rule could have an impact outside of the classroom and the lab. Physicians and hospital administrators said the roughly 17,000 J-1 visa holders currently working in hospitals as part of their medical training would be affected and detailed in comments how the change could ultimately disrupt Americans’ access to health care.

“It is important to recognize that the 17,000 J-1 physicians training in the U.S. do not displace domestic medical graduates; rather, they fill residency slots that would otherwise remain unfilled each year,” wrote the American Hospital Association in a comment. “These physicians disproportionately train in high-need specialties that continue to be in substantial shortage, such as internal medicine, pediatrics and family medicine. They also frequently work in rural and underserved communities, and many who train in those settings continue to work in them when their training is complete. J-1 physicians not only help sustain the physician workforce pipeline but also help expand patient access to essential care.”

Numerous commenters who identified themselves as leaders in industries from financial services to pharmaceuticals also explained how their companies and industries at large rely on the contributions of international students.

“The maximum stay restrictions are especially problematic for Ph.D. students and those conducting long-term clinical trials, which often span five to seven years,” wrote an anonymous commenter who identified themself as a senior executive in a global pharmaceutical company. “Reducing this flexibility would disrupt important research in drug efficacy and public health. Students engaged in such long-term research projects would be forced to abandon their work prematurely, leading to a waste of time, resources, and intellectual capital that the U.S. cannot afford to lose.”

A seemingly small number of comments were in favor of the change, with many of the supportive comments claiming international students are taking jobs and spots at colleges away from Americans.

One higher education association—the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities—did not outright oppose the measure, but rather encouraged DHS to limit it just to colleges with admission rates under 30 percent. The council’s president, David A. Hoag, argued that those are the institutions at which the administration is concerned about “foreign students potentially displacing American students.”

“This approach directly addresses the administration’s stated concern by focusing on the subset of institutions where foreign student enrollment is most likely to impact domestic applicants,” he wrote. “By limiting the rule’s scope in this way, DHS can more effectively target its regulatory efforts while minimizing unnecessary restrictions on less selective schools where this displacement issue is less pronounced.”

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October 3, 2025
Texas Tech Clarified Anti-Trans Policies in FAQ—Then Removed It

Faculty may include a preferred name policy on their syllabi, but they are advised against mentioning pronouns, the FAQ said.

Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | menonsstocks/E+/Getty Images | snorkulencija/iStock/Getty Images

After a confusing week, Texas Tech University officials offered the first written clarification on new university policies that prohibit faculty members from speaking or teaching about transgender identity. On Sunday, the provost’s office posted a lengthy frequently asked questions page that, among other things, addressed the definition of “noncompliant language,” explained how the new policies impact research and answered whether faculty can write on their syllabi that they are an ally to transgender people.

But after three days, the FAQ was taken down. Faculty have not been told why the information was removed, and health-care instructors are concerned students will not be trained in care for transgender patients, as required by certification exams.

A university spokesperson did not respond to Inside Higher Ed’s questions on the matter. Some faculty suspect that Brandon Creighton, who was officially named the Texas Tech system’s next chancellor on Tuesday, may have orchestrated the removal of the FAQ. Creighton was the lead author of the Texas Senate’s sweeping ban on diversity, equity and inclusion in 2023, and of the recent bill giving control of faculty senates to university presidents and boards. He will assume the chancellor role on Nov. 19.

While it was the first and most comprehensive written guidance Texas Tech has posted on its anti-trans policies, the FAQ left a lot of questions unanswered. The word “transgender” wasn’t included in any of the written answers. In one answer, officials wrote that noncompliant language “refers specifically to outdated or inaccurate syllabus content (i.e., COVID-era statements or statements referring to offices or units that no longer exist at Texas Tech.),” but said nothing about gender identity.

In response to a question about academic freedom, officials wrote, “Faculty may include course content that is relevant to a student’s program of study and post-graduation opportunities, including workforce and additional education. Faculty are encouraged to be thoughtful about including content that is described in the Chancellor’s memo.”

The new directives do not impact research, the FAQ clarified. Officials advised against including a “personal statement of student support” or a statement professing LGBTQ allyship, writing that “such a statement could attract unwanted attention.” They also wrote that faculty could include a preferred name policy on their syllabi, but that “until further clarification is available, it is advisable to omit personal pronoun language.” When relevant, instructors are permitted to facilitate classroom discussions in which students examine the state’s position on gender alongside other views, but the instructor may not advocate for any particular view.

In a later question about government censorship and faculty retention, officials wrote, “We recognize that faculty recruitment and retention may be affected. At present, the issued guidance applies only to instructional activities, not a faculty member’s independent research.”

The Texas conference of the American Association of University Professors has pushed back on the anti-trans policies at Texas Tech and other public universities in the state.

“Colleges and universities have an obligation to develop campus policies that protect the constitutional rights of their faculty to teach and research the subjects in their areas of expertise without intimidation or censorship,” said Brian Evans, president of the Texas conference of the AAUP. “By ensuring that teachers can speak freely, campus administrators should enable students to explore and learn the widest set of topics for civil engagement and successful careers. Campus policies related to academic freedom and free speech should be devised with the full participation of faculty in the spirit of a shared commitment to excellence.”

The FAQ—as short-lived as it was—only applied to Texas Tech’s flagship campus. The four other campuses in the public system, including Angelo State University, where faculty have received a profusion of conflicting verbal information, were not included.

A faculty member at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution confirmed to Inside Higher Ed that faculty at their campus have been told not to use certain terms in their course content, including “transgender”; “gender-affirming care”; “diversity, equity and inclusion”; and “affirmative action.” Health Sciences Center faculty have not received any written guidance, and the deans don’t have clarifying information, either, the faculty member said. It is an especially troubling policy to enforce for health-care students, because care for transgender patients is included in some certification exams students must pass to be licensed, they said.

“There are certainly many things that our government has [outlawed] … but I can’t think of another thing that we’ve been told we can’t talk about,” the faculty member said. “Sex trafficking is illegal, but we can talk about how to care for people who have been victims of sex trafficking. Drunk driving—there’s about a million examples.”

It is unclear how much information students have about these new policies, according to the faculty member. Some students are bringing up transgender care in classroom discussions, and instructors are unsure how to respond.

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October 3, 2025