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Support Career Agency for International Scientists (opinion)
International Ph.D. students and postdoctoral scholars drive a large share of the United States’ scientific research, innovation and global competitiveness. Yet these visa holders often face systemic barriers that limit their ability to build independent, fulfilling careers. Restricted access to fellowships and immigration constraints can stifle career agency, forcing the nation’s institutions to lose out on the very global talent they train to fuel discovery and progress.

Drawing from insights in our recently released book, Thriving as an International Scientist (University of California Press), this essay outlines key challenges that international scientists face and concrete steps universities, employers and scientific societies can take to enable their dynamic career success.

Systemic Barriers to Career Independence

The U.S. depends on international talent to sustain its scientific enterprise. In 2023, nearly 41 percent of Ph.D. students and 58 percent of postdocs in U.S. universities were visa holders, and international scholars made up 34 percent of Ph.D. graduates in 2022, an increase from just 11 percent in1977.

While U.S. universities still lead globally in training and employing a robust international scientific workforce, the recent anti-immigrant climate in the U.S. and growing global competition for STEM talent threatens this long-standing advantage. Two issues impacting international scientists stand out as particularly urgent: limited access to independent research fellowships and visa policies that restrict career flexibility.
- Fewer fellowships lead to reduced agency. International scientists have access to fewer fellowships for supporting their independent research ideas. Data on primary sources of STEM doctoral student funding indicates 17 percent of international Ph.D. students relied primarily on fellowships, scholarships or dissertation grants in 2022, compared to 29 percent of their U.S. citizen and permanent resident peers. More than half of international Ph.D. students in science and engineering across U.S. universities relied on faculty-directed funding, through research assistantships, compared with just a third of domestic students (citizens and permanent residents).
This reliance limits their autonomy to define research directions or confidently pursue professional development and internship opportunities. As a result, only 22 percent of international Ph.D. graduates from U.S. universities committed to academic careers (excluding postdocs) in 2022, in part due to a significant lack in independent funding experience—a key qualification for faculty roles.
- Visa constraints on career mobility. Visa regulations often confine international scientists to narrowly defined “research-related” roles in academia or industry. This restriction effectively locks them out of emerging career paths in the business of science, science policy, science communication, entrepreneurship, university administration and nonprofit leadership until they obtain permanent residency.
They are also disproportionately vulnerable to economic downturns or layoffs. Work visas typically allow a 60-day grace period to secure new employment and maintain legal immigration status, putting tremendous pressure on individuals and families. With rising costs and uncertainty surrounding H-1B work visas, employers may also hesitate to hire international scientists, compounding career instability for this essential segment of the STEM workforce.

What Universities Can Do

We expand on recommendations offered to universities in the International Talent Programs in the Changing Global Environment consensus report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine and by the Association of American Universities’ Ph.D. Education Initiative. Universities can take the following actions to better support international Ph.D. students and postdocs:
- Expand access to independent funding. Increase visibility of funding through databases such as Pivot and create matching fellowship opportunities from institutional, corporate and philanthropic sources that are open to noncitizens.
- Track and leverage alumni outcomes. Analyze Ph.D. and postdoctoral career outcomes by citizenship and location in order to strengthen alumni mentorship and global networks for trainees.
- Specialized professional development for Ph.Ds. Provide training in in-demand and holistic skills to address wicked problems, advance emerging technologies and foster knowledge of a range of careers for STEM Ph.D. holders.
- Integrate career development into curricula. Embed professional development and career preparation within graduate and postdoctoral programs, rather than limiting them to extracurricular workshops, in order to encourage international scientists to participate.
- Foster equitable access to internships. Simplify and expand opportunities for experiential learning by using the Curricular Practical Training path. Departments can offer internship courses through which students can use CPT or encourage them to incorporate insights from their internships into the dissertation. Creating more practical opportunities for students to broadly apply their research skills enables their success in getting work visas for diverse careers.
At Princeton University, one of us developed a specialized professional development series for international graduate students integrating creative design, intentional career planning, immigration literacy and strategies for global careers. This approach helps international scholars build resilience, community and agency in navigating complex systems and uncertain futures.

The Role of Scientific and Professional Societies

Scientific and professional societies hold powerful levers for nationwide systemic change. Through initiatives that foster advocacy, partnerships and innovation, they can amplify the impact of international scientists and shape more inclusive policies.
- Diversify funding models. As scientific leaders reconsider how to continue funding STEM research including for graduate and postdoctoral programs at scale in the U.S. through convenings (e.g., by NASEM and UIDP), public-private-philanthropic partnerships must intentionally include considerations by and for international graduate students and postdocs in their planning and implementation.
- Require professional development. Foundations and philanthropic funders can make career and professional development a standard component of fellowships and sponsored research grants, following the precedents set by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.
- Mobilize advocacy through data. Public-facing dashboards such as the NAFSA International Student Economic Value Tool and OPT Observatory from the Institute for Progress, demonstrate the economic and intellectual value of international scientists. These are powerful tools for storytelling, advocacy and policy change.
- Encourage immigration innovation. Beyond ongoing legislative efforts like the bipartisan Keep STEM Talent Act aiming to support the U.S. STEM workforce, the philanthropic sector can also pilot creative solutions. For instance, Renaissance Philanthropy’s Talent Mobility Fund raises awareness of underutilized immigration pathways such as O-1 and J-1 visas, diversifying routes available for STEM researchers.
Employer Responsibility

Employers across all sectors—universities, for-profit industries and nonprofit organizations—have a shared responsibility to create transparent, informed hiring practices for visa holders. Too often, candidates are left to initiate uncomfortable sponsorship discussions during job interviews. Instead, hiring managers should proactively coordinate with human resources and legal teams before posting positions to determine sponsorship possibilities, costs and timelines. Even small changes, such as explicitly noting “visa sponsorship available” (or not available) in job descriptions, can make a significant difference in promoting fairness and equity in hiring.

Moving Forward: Shared Responsibility for Systemic Change

The ability of international scientists to thrive is not just a matter of ethics and fairness—it is a strategic imperative for the future of American science and innovation. Universities, scientific societies, funders and employers have a shared responsibility to participate in removing systemic barriers and expanding opportunities for international scientists in a variety of careers.

While large-scale policy change may take time, meaningful progress is possible through small, immediate steps:
- Expanding access to independent funding and internships,
- Increasing transparency through data, and
- Fostering mentorship and advocacy networks.
By enabling international scientists to build dynamic, independent careers, we strengthen not only their futures but also the vitality and global leadership of the U.S. research enterprise.

Sonali Majumdar (she/her) is assistant dean for professional development in Princeton University’s Graduate School and author of Thriving as an International Scientist: Professional Development for Global STEM Citizens (October 2025, University of California Press). She is a member of the Graduate Career Consortium—an organization providing an international voice for graduate-level career and professional development leaders.

Adriana Bankston (she/her) is a strong advocate for the research enterprise and supporting the next-generation STEM workforce and a former AAAS/ASGCT Congressional Policy Fellow in the U.S. House of Representatives. She contributed to a chapter in Thriving as an International Scientist on systemic reforms and policy change in academia.
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November 10, 2025
U.S. Universities Are National Security Assets (opinion)

For too long, Americans have underestimated the strategic value of our universities. The popular belief is that higher education’s chief contribution to national security is soft power—the goodwill generated by cultural exchange, academic diplomacy and global networking. That’s accurate, but it’s only a small part of the security story.

The vast majority of our 4,000-odd colleges and universities (including the elite ones) are hardly the ivory towers so associated with so-called woke movements and high-profile culture wars. Many, in fact, are the R&D labs of our national security infrastructure. They are the training grounds for the nation’s cyber warriors, military leaders, intelligence officers and diplomats. To be sure, they are one of America’s most potent weapons in an era of fierce geopolitical competition.

The Reserve Officers’ Training Corps is the military’s largest commissioning source, with a footprint that spans the nation. Army ROTC alone operates at about 1,000 college campuses and provides merit-based benefits to roughly 15,000 students each year. It produces approximately 70 percent of the officers entering the Army annually, commissioning around 5,000 second lieutenants in a typical year.

The scale is cross-service: Air Force ROTC maintains 145 host detachments with more than 1,100 partner universities and commissioned 2,109 Air Force and 141 Space Force officers in 2022. Navy/Marine Corps ROTC fields 63 units hosted at 77 colleges and extends to 160-plus colleges via cross-town agreements. Between 2011 and 2021, about 1,441 U.S. colleges and universities had at least one ROTC host, cross-town or extension unit—and every state has at least one host. Over its first century, ROTC has produced more than one million officers.

The Department of Defense, as key partner with higher education, invests billions annually in university research. In fiscal year 2022 alone, the DOD’s research, development, test and evaluation budget authority reached $118.7 billion. For example, the Defense University Research Instrumentation Program awarded $43 million in equipment grants to 112 university researchers for the 2025 fiscal year. Entities like DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), the Army Research Laboratory, and the Office of Naval Research fund breakthroughs in AI, quantum computing, hypersonics and cyber resilience. Universities partner with the Defense Department and other government agencies to conduct research in areas like drone technology, stealth aircraft and, historically, the development of the Internet and GPS.

Cybersecurity is another front where U.S. universities lead with global distinction. The National Security Agency has designated nearly 500 campuses as national Centers of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity. Universities like Carnegie Mellon, Purdue and the University of Texas at San Antonio run advanced programs focused on cryptography, digital forensics and cyber policy, partnering with both government and industry to build systems that repel state-sponsored hackers.

Biosecurity is equally critical. The COVID-19 pandemic proved that viruses can fundamentally destabilize economies and national morale as quickly as warfare can. Johns Hopkins, Emory, Harvard and Vanderbilt Universities all were at the forefront of research on the coronavirus and vaccines. Land-grant universities like Texas A&M and Iowa State have long been securing our food supply against agroterrorism and climate threats. As just one example of this partnership, in 2024, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture announced $7.6 million in grants to 12 different universities focused on agricultural biosecurity.

Then there’s the talent pipeline. American universities train the linguists, engineers, analysts and scientists who feed the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Homeland Security and the armed forces. Through partnerships with universities, the National Security Education Program, the Critical Language Scholarship and the National Security Language Initiative for Youth help produce graduates fluent in Arabic, Mandarin and Farsi—utterly essential skills for both diplomacy and national intelligence.

Boren Scholars and Fellows are dedicated to harnessing their advanced linguistic and cultural skills within the federal government by securing a minimum of one year of employment in national security, actively strengthening the federal workforce and significantly elevating U.S. capabilities, deterrence and readiness.

Meanwhile, China has built a centralized academic–military complex under its Military–Civil Fusion strategy. Top universities like Tsinghua and Beihang Universities are deeply integrated with the People’s Liberation Army, producing dual-use research in AI, quantum and hypersonics—technologies intended to challenge U.S. dominance. The National University of Defense Technology is a flagship institution in this network, known for dual-use supercomputing and aerospace research. This model is potent but currently lacks the kind of innovative potential of U.S. institutions.

The U.S. system, by contrast, is decentralized, competitive and open. We often refer to this as “loose coupling”; the accompanying organizational dynamic is what enables so much of the innovative, interdisciplinary and cross-institutional work that U.S. higher education produces. But adequately funding this system is quickly becoming unsustainable and unpopular. The Trump administration is cutting funding for politically inconvenient fields—such as climate science, public health and international cooperation—and subjecting grant applications to political review. Many of these cuts target areas of academic inquiry that may appear obscure to the public but are fundamental to the foundational domains of national security. It is also worth noting that recent research suggests that the already high public and private returns to federally funded research are likely much higher than those reflected in current estimates.

Focusing solely on weapons labs while neglecting other strategic fields is short-sighted and dangerous. Security is not merely about firepower—it’s about the stability of the knowledge-based society. Public health, basic sciences, environmental resilience, diplomacy and social cohesion are just as critical to preventing conflict as advanced missiles and cyber weapons. To be sure, our colleges and universities contribute, almost beyond measure, to the stability of U.S. civil society through each of these domains.

Universities are not optional in the defense of this republic—they are indispensable. Undermine them and we hand our international competitors the high ground in both technology and ideas. In the contest for global leadership, the fight won’t just be won on battlefields. It will be won in classrooms, labs and libraries.

Brian Heuser is an associate professor of the practice of international education policy at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. For much of his career, he has worked on numerous projects related to national security education, including with the Boren Scholars Program, the former Edmund S. Muskie Graduate Fellowship Program and as a U.S. Embassy policy specialist to the Republic of Georgia.

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November 10, 2025
Fla. Board Says Syllabi, Reading Lists Must Be Posted Publicly

Already, the University of Florida requires professors to post their syllabi online—but only three days prior to the start of class.

Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Liudmila Chernetska, Davizro and DenisTangneyJr/iStock/Getty Images

Faculty at all Florida public universities must now make syllabi, as well as a list of required or recommended textbooks and instructional materials for each class, available online and searchable for students and the general public for five years.

The new policy is part of an amendment to the Florida Board of Governors’ regulation on “Textbook and Instructional Materials Affordability and Transparency,” and it passed unanimously without discussion at a board meeting Thursday. On the agenda item description, board officials cited improved transparency as the impetus for the rule, which is meant to help students “make informed decisions as they select courses.” But some faculty members say it’s designed to chill academic freedom and allow the public to police what professors teach in the classroom.

“Many of my colleagues and I believe that this is yet another overreach by political appointees to let Florida’s faculty know that they are being watched for potentially teaching any content that the far right finds problematic,” said John White, a professor of English education and literacy at the University of North Florida. He said officials at his institution told faculty members they must upload their syllabi for 2026 spring semester classes to Simple Syllabus, an online syllabi hosting platform, by December.

“Florida’s universities are being run in an Orwellian manner, and working as a faculty member in Florida is increasingly like living in the world of Fahrenheit 451,” he said.

According to the approved amendment, professors must post the syllabi “as early as is feasible” but no fewer than 45 days prior to the start of class. Public syllabi must include “course curriculum, required and recommended textbooks and instructional materials, goals and student expectations of the course, and how student performance will be measured and evaluated, including the grading scale.” Individualized courses like independent study and theses are exempt from the rule.

The Florida Board of Governors did not respond to Inside Higher Ed’s questions about the amended policy, including a question about when it will start being enforced.

Concerns About Faculty Safety

It’s not a unique policy, even in Florida. Since 2013, the University of Florida has required professors to post their syllabi online—but only three days prior to the start of class, and they have to remain publicly available for just three semesters. Now, all Florida public universities, including the University of Florida, must follow the new rules. A UF spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed the university is waiting for the Board of Governors to share guidance about when the new policy will be enforced.

“Even before the rule, most faculty members have been posting anyway to advertise their course. Faculty members in fact prefer to post in advance and certainly have nothing against posting,” said Meera Sitharam, a professor in the department of computer and information science and engineering, and president of the University of Florida’s 2,150-member United Faculty of Florida union. The faculty she spoke with primarily took issue with the new 45-day deadline, which is “quite early for a posting containing all the details” of a syllabus, she said. They are also concerned that they will no longer be able to make changes to reading lists midsemester.

“A good-quality discussion class would permit the instructor to assign new reading as the course proceeds. This would now be disallowed,” Sitharam said. “The effect of this is likely to be that an overlong reading list is posted by the faculty member just to make sure that they don’t miss anything they might want to assign. And much of the reading list may never be assigned.”

Texas similarly requires all faculty at public institutions to make a version of their syllabus public. Indiana implemented a law in July requiring public institutions to publish all course syllabi on their websites, and this fall, the University System of Georgia introduced a new policy requiring faculty to post syllabi and curriculum vitae on institution websites.

Some faculty members in those states have seen firsthand the risks of posting syllabi online; several professors have been harassed and doxed over course content in their online syllabi. Florida faculty are concerned the same thing could happen to them; several faculty members believe that the board passed the rule with the intent of siccing the general public on professors who teach about topics that conservative politicians don’t like.

“The sole purpose is to subcontract out the oversight of all of our courses, so that if there’s some independent entity or individual that wants to look at the College of Education at Florida State, and they spend two months doing a deep dive into all of the classes, then they’ll come up with: ‘Here at Florida State we found these five classes that don’t meet [our standards],’” said William Trapani, communications and multimedia studies professor at Florida Atlantic University. “Why else would you have that capacity to make this data bank and make it publicly accessible for five years?”

Stan Kaye, a professor emeritus of design and technology at the University of Florida, sees concerns about the policy as overblown. “I cannot see why making syllabi public at a public institution is a problem for anyone—I would think that promoting your work and subject is generally a good thing,” he said. “If you are afraid you are teaching something illegal or that lacks academic integrity and you want to keep it secret, that should be a problem.”

Faculty safety is the primary concern for James Beasley, an associate professor of English and president of the faculty association at North Florida.

“The most important issue related to this requirement is the safety of our faculty, both online and in person. The concern is that faculty will be exposed to external trolls of course content and that the publication of course locations will expose faculty to location disclosures,” Beasley said in an email. While it is typical for syllabi to include course meeting times and locations, the new board policy does not require that information to be posted online.

Trapani also said that because of the five-year syllabus retention period, faculty are worried they could be retroactively harassed for teaching about something the public finds unfavorable from a class several years ago. White has similar concerns.

“I’m teaching a course that utilizes neo-Marxist theory to critique the idea of meritocracy—will the Board of Governors or members of the public falsely claim I’m teaching communism or that I’m teaching students to hate their country? If a history professor or a social studies education professor is discussing redlining or Jim Crow laws, will they later be critiqued for teaching students about institutionalized racism or sexism?” White said.

Ultimately, Trapani believes the amended syllabi policy is an attempt to insulate the Board of Governors from public criticism.

“Florida will make a lot more sense to outsiders if its policymaking is viewed through a lens of fear,” he said. “They’ve deputized an army of outsiders to pore through records older than most students’ time at the university—all so that they cannot be accused of missing something … It’s just another way in which faculty employment conditions and physical safety are made more precarious by the endless barrage of false claims about our teaching practices.”

Josh Moody contributed to this report.

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November 10, 2025
Higher education must include valuable workforce experience and training that helps students secure meaningful jobs

by Bruno V. Manno, The Hechinger Report
November 10, 2025

This fall, some 19 million undergraduates returned to U.S. campuses with a long-held expectation: Graduate, land an entry-level job, climb the career ladder. That formula is breaking down.

Once reliable gateway jobs for college graduates in industries like finance, consulting and journalism have tightened requirements. Many entry-level job postings that previously provided initial working experience for college graduates now require two to three years of prior experience, while AI, a recent analysis concluded, “snaps up good entry-level tasks,” especially routine work like drafting memos, preparing spreadsheets and summarizing research.

Without these proving grounds, new hires lose chances to build skills by doing. And the demand for work experience that potential workers don’t have creates an experience gap for new job seekers. Once stepping-stones, entry-level positions increasingly resemble mid-career jobs.

No doubt AI is and will continue to reshape work in general and entry-level jobs in particular in expected and unexpected ways. But we are not doomed to what some call an “AI job apocalypse” or a “white-collar bloodbath” that leads to mass unemployment. There are practical solutions to the experience gap problem when it comes to education and training programs. These include earn-and-learn models and other innovative public and private employer partnerships that build into their approaches opportunities for young people to gain valuable work experience.

Related: Interested in innovations in higher education? Subscribe to our free biweekly higher education newsletter.

Before I describe these potential solutions, here is more information on how I see the problem.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported that in March 2025, the unemployment rate for college graduates ages 22 to 27 was 5.7 percent, compared to an overall unemployment rate of 4.0 percent. Other than the temporary pandemic-related spike in 2021, that was the highest unemployment rate for new grads since 2014. More recently, the Fed’s August 2025 unemployment rate for recent college graduates was 1 percentage point higher than its overall unemployment rate of 4.3 percent.

The experience gap phenomenon is not limited to the tech sector. In 2019, 61 percent of AI-related job postings were in the information technology and computer science sector, with 39 percent in non-tech sectors, labor analytics from Lightcast show. By 2024, the majority (51 percent versus 49 percent) of AI-related job postings were outside the tech sector.

The cumulative effect of all this is apparent. The hollowing out of entry-level work stalls mobility across the labor market, leaving many college graduates stranded before their careers can even begin. Moreover, these changes cut to the core of higher education’s promise.

If graduates can’t secure meaningful jobs, confidence in higher ed falters — one reason why it should come as no surprise that 56 percent of Americans think earning a four-year degree is not worth the cost, a March 2023 Wall Street Journal-NORC poll found, compared with 42 percent who think it is, a new low in a poll first administered in 2013. Skepticism was predominant among those ages 18 to 34, and college degree holders were among those most skeptical.

Related: As more question the value of a degree, colleges fight to prove their return on investment

The collapse of entry-level jobs isn’t just a cyclical downturn. It’s a structural shift. Left unchecked, this dynamic will deepen inequality, slow social mobility and further undermine faith in higher education.

As I’ve said, solutions exist. Here are five that I believe in:

Apprenticeships and other earn-and-learn models: Earn-and-learn apprenticeships are a promising, direct solution to the experience gap. They combine paid work with structured training and provide years of experience to college students in those jobs. Sectors from tech to health care are experimenting with this model, examples of which include registered apprenticeships, youth apprenticeships, pre-apprenticeships and apprenticeship degrees that allow individuals to pursue a degree while they work in an apprenticeship.

Skills-based hiring and alternative credentials: Initiatives such as skills-first hiring by major employers like IBM, Google and Apple aim to evaluate candidates based on their competencies rather than their degrees. Microcredentials, industry certificates and portfolios can serve as verifiable signals of skills gained through alternative training routes.

Stronger college and employer partnerships: Colleges can (and should) embed work-based learning into curricula through co-op programs, project-based courses and partnerships with local industries. Northeastern University and Drexel have long pioneered this model. And others, such as Western Governors University and Southern New Hampshire University, are using online learning to advance this approach. Scaling this solution could help close the experience gap.

Policy innovations: Governments can play a role by giving incentives to companies to create early career opportunities. Workforce Pell, recently enacted in President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, expands financial aid to use for short-term training programs, opening new pathways for students who may not be pursuing traditional degrees. Tax credits for apprenticeship sponsors and funding for regional workforce hubs could further expand opportunities.

Reimagining internships: Expanding access to paid internships — especially for first-generation and low-income students — could democratize the attainment of experience. Philanthropies and local governments could underwrite stipends to ensure that opportunity isn’t reserved for the affluent who can afford unpaid internships or have social networks that connect them to these opportunities.

The challenge presented by this troubling experience gap is urgent. Today’s students deserve a college experience and a labor market in which education and effort still translate into opportunity.

Bruno V. Manno is a senior advisor at the Progressive Policy Institute, leading its What Works Lab, and is a former U.S. assistant secretary of education for policy.

Contact the opinion editor at [email protected].

This story about workforce experience was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.

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November 10, 2025
Cornell Settles With the Trump Administration

Cornell University has reached a deal with the Trump administration to pay the government a $30 million settlement—and invest another $30 million in agricultural research—in exchange for having its frozen federal research funding restored.

The agreement, announced Friday, makes Cornell the latest institution to strike a deal with the federal government in an effort to settle investigations into alleged civil rights violations. The settlement follows similar arrangements at the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, Brown University and the University of Virginia. Concessions varied by university, with Columbia making the biggest payout at $221 million.

Collectively, those institutions were targeted for a range of alleged violations, including allowing transgender athletes to compete on women’s sports teams, failing to police campus antisemitism amid pro-Palestinian protests and operating supposedly illegal diversity, equity and inclusion practices as the Trump administration cracked down on DEI initiatives.

Now the university will see roughly $250 million in frozen federal research funding immediately restored. The federal government will also close ongoing civil rights investigations into Cornell.

While some institutions, including Columbia, have given tremendous deference to the federal government and agreed to sweeping changes across admissions, hiring and academic programs, the deal at Cornell appears to be relatively constrained, despite the $30 million payout.

Under the agreement, Cornell must share anonymized admissions data broken down by race, GPA and standardized test scores with the federal government through 2028; conduct annual campus climate surveys; and ensure compliance with various federal laws. Cornell also agreed to share as a training resource with faculty and staff a July memo from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi barring the use of race in hiring, admissions practices and scholarship programs. And in addition to paying the federal government $30 million over three years, Cornell will invest $30 million “in research programs that will directly benefit U.S. farmers through lower costs of production and enhanced efficiency, including but not limited to programs that incorporate [artificial intelligence] and robotics,” according to a copy of the agreement.

Cornell leaders cast the deal as a positive for the university.

“I am pleased that our good faith discussions with the White House, Department of Justice, and Department of Education have concluded with an agreement that acknowledges the government’s commitment to enforce existing anti-discrimination law, while protecting our academic freedom and institutional independence,” Cornell president Michael Kotlikoff said in a statement shared with Inside Higher Ed. “These discussions have now yielded a result that will enable us to return to our teaching and research in restored partnership with federal agencies.”

Education Secretary Linda McMahon also celebrated the deal in a post on X.

“The Trump Administration has secured another transformative commitment from an Ivy League institution to end divisive DEI policies. Thanks to this deal with Cornell and the ongoing work of DOJ, HHS, and the team at ED, U.S. universities are refocusing their attention on merit, rigor, and truth-seeking—not ideology. These reforms are a huge win in the fight to restore excellence to American higher education and make our schools the greatest in the world,” she wrote.

Some outside observers, however, excoriated the settlement as capitulation to authoritarianism.

“The Trump administration’s corrupt extortion of higher ed institutions must end. Americans want an education system that serves the public good, not a dangerously narrow far right ideology that serves billionaires,” American Association of University Professors President Todd Wolfson said in a statement, which also urged colleges to fight intrusion by the federal government.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.

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November 7, 2025
Congress Accuses GMU President of Lying About DEI Efforts

House Republicans have accused George Mason University President Gregory Washington of lying to Congress about diversity practices at his institution, ratcheting up pressure on the president to step down.

The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee alleged in a report released Thursday night that Washington made “multiple false statements to Congress” in testimony about diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts at GMU. The public university has been under fire for months over allegedly illegal DEI practices as the Trump administration has sought to crack down on such initiatives, claiming they are discriminatory and violate federal civil rights law. The Judiciary Committee report also alleged that the university “likely violated federal civil rights law by discriminating based on race in its hiring practices to advance Dr. Washington’s diversity, equity, and inclusion initiative.”

Washington has denied breaking the law through efforts to diversify GMU’s faculty and staff, telling Congress that the university did not practice illegal discrimination under his leadership.

The report is the latest salvo from Republicans who have launched federal investigations into GMU over its hiring policies, including demands that the embattled president apologize for allegedly discriminatory practices, which he has refused to do as he denies any wrongdoing.

What’s in the Report

The House Judiciary Committee’s report zoomed in on an effort by GMU, launched shortly after Washington took office in July 2020, to diversify employee ranks. The Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence initiative the president introduced aimed to make faculty and staff “mirror student Demographics” at GMU, which is among the most diverse institutions in the country. As part of that effort, GMU tasked schools and departments with hiring more underrepresented individuals.

But in Congressional testimony, Washington denied the initiative was a strict mandate.

“These are overall goals and they’re aspirational in focus,” Washington said, according to a transcript of his Sept. 17 interview released by the House Judiciary Committee Thursday.

Though the Anti-Racism and Inclusive Excellence initiative stemmed from his office, Washington told Congress that faculty in each department developed plans for their unit. He also cast the creation of such plans as optional, telling Congress “if units did not want to develop a plan, they did not have to.”

But the House Judiciary Committee claimed Washington lied about that.

“Documents and testimony obtained by the Committee … show that Dr. Washington and his deputies actively sought to punish schools that did not comply with his racial discrimination mandates,” the committee report states. “A senior GMU official told the Committee that GMU financially punished any school that resisted Dr. Washington’s unconstitutional initiative.”

Congress pointed to testimony from Ken Randall, the dean of George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, as evidence that Washington lied about the plan being optional.

“You’d get fired if you didn’t have a plan,” Randall said, according to an interview transcript.

Washington also denied the administration formally reviewed plans to diversify faculty hiring. Republicans accused him of lying about that, too, pointing to internal remarks from then-vice president of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Sharnnia Artis (who now has a different title), in which she said the DEI team “consistently reviewed, monitored, and supported” such plans.

“Again, the evidence contradicts Dr. Washington’s testimony,” the report states.

However, Douglas Gansler, a lawyer representing the GMU president sharply disrupted claims that his client lied to Congress, which he accused of carrying out a “political lynching” in an emailed statement to Inside Higher Ed.

“The political theater of the politicians accusing Dr. Washington of misrepresenting anything to them is unadulterated nonsense. Dr. Washington has never discriminated against anybody for any reason and did not utter one syllable of anything not verifiably completely true,” Gansler wrote.

What Happens Next

The GMU Board of Visitors has said little in the immediate aftermath of the report.

“Today, the Board of Visitors received an interim staff report from the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary. We are reviewing the report and consulting with University counsel and counsel for Dr. Washington,” board members wrote in a brief statement. “The Board remains focused on serving our students, faculty and the Commonwealth, ensuring full compliance with federal law and positioning GMU for continued excellence.”

While the board is reviewing the report, it appears unlikely members would be able to take action against Washington. GMU’s board, which is stocked with GOP donors and political figures appointed by Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin, is currently without a quorum after Virginia Democrats blocked multiple appointments in recent months. Now a legal battle over those blocked appointments is slowly winding its way through the judicial system. While the Virginia Supreme Court heard arguments in the case last month, it has yet to issue a ruling on the matter. In the meantime, with only six of its 16 seats filled, GMU’s board is hobbled.

Youngkin’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Inside Higher Ed.

The George Mason chapter of the American Association of University Professors offered a fiery defense of Washington, arguing in a statement the committee was carrying out a politically motivated attack designed to erode institutional autonomy and impose partisan control over the public university.

“The Committee’s unfounded accusations, dependence on clearly compromised sources, and selective presentation of ‘evidence’ represent an unprecedented abuse of congressional power—designed not to find the truth, but to silence leadership that refuses to yield to political pressure,” the GMU-AAUP chapter wrote in an emailed statement to Inside Higher Ed.

GMU students, employees and community members rallied in support of president Gregory Washington earlier this year, amid concerns the board would fire him.

With Washington under pressure from Congress, state and national Democrats have rallied to his defense, accusing the GOP of waging an ideological war on universities and hypocrisy by focusing on the GMU president’s alleged dishonesty while federal officials brazenly lie in court.

“In Donald Trump’s Gangster State, they pick the target first and figure out the charges later,” House Judiciary Democrats wrote on X. “Today’s target: GMU President Gregory Washington. The Trump Education Department failed to find evidence of employment discrimination at GMU. So [House Judiciary committee] Chairman [Jim] Jordan opened his own investigation. When that one only confirmed Dr. Washington followed Virginia law, Jordan pivoted and conjured up an absurd and convoluted criminal referral based on an alleged lie that takes 8 pages to explain.”

Representative James Walkinshaw—a Democrat in Virginia’s 11th district, which includes GMU—called Washington “an exemplary leader” in a biting statement posted on Bluesky.

“Make no mistake, this is an attack on free speech and academic freedom,” Walkinshaw wrote. “It’s cancel culture at its worst and the American people are tired of right-wing snowflakes like Jim Jordan trying to silence anyone who doesn’t bend the knee to their bizarre MAGA ideology.”

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November 7, 2025
Billions of Aid Dollars Go to High-Income Students

A new report from the Century Foundation found that state and institutional grant aid too often flows to higher-income students who don’t need it, while low-income students continue to struggle with unmet need.

The analysis, released Thursday, shows that more than half of students from the top income quartile, 56 percent, receive grants that surpass their financial need, compared to a mere 0.2 percent of students from the bottom income quartile. That means that top income quartile students were 280 times more likely to receive grants that exceeded their level of need than their lowest income peers. The share of white students that receive grants beyond their needs (19 percent) far exceeds the share of Black of Hispanic students who receive such grants (5 percent).

Part of the issue is that the share of state grants that are merit-based jumped 17 percentage points between 1982 and now, according to the report. Over all, about 10 percent of grant aid—at least $10 billion annually in state and institutional aid—exceeds students’ financial need.

The analysis also found that state grants disproportionately go to students at highly selective public colleges versus students at open-admission public four-year institutions—$3,693 and $842 on average, respectively. And at four-year public colleges over all, students with an Expected Family Contribution of zero were less likely than students with higher EFCs to receive aid from their institution.

“What people think about as a pillar of the financial aid system in higher education has become a windfall for wealthy students that leaves working families paying the bill for tuition increases,” Peter Granville, the report’s author and a fellow at the Century Foundation, said in a news release.

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November 7, 2025
Florida DOGE Finds Disproportionate Spending at New College

New College spent $83,207 per student in fiscal year 2024, the highest among state universities.

Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Thomas Simonetti/The Washington Post/Getty Images

Nearly three years into a conservative overhaul of New College of Florida, costs are adding up as the operating expenses per student dramatically outpace other State University System of Florida members.

Data presented at Thursday’s Florida Board of Governors offers the clearest breakdown so far of what New College is spending per student compared to 11 other system members. NCF spent $83,207 per student in fiscal year 2024, the highest among state universities.

The University of Florida, a major research institution, was the next highest at $45,765 per student, while the lowest was the University of Central Florida at $12,172 per student, according to data compiled by the Florida Department of Government Efficiency.

New College and UF also had the highest number of administrators per 100 students. New College had 33.3 administrators per 100 students while UF had 26.9. Others in the system ranged from a low of 4.6 administrators per student at UCF to 12.6 at the University of South Florida.

Silence on Spending

Now, despite support from Republican governor Ron DeSantis—who appointed a slate of conservative trustees in early 2023 and tasked them with reimagining the small liberal arts college—NCF is facing growing scrutiny over soaring operating expenses from alumni and other community members. But the Florida Board of Governors, which is appointed by DeSantis, had little to say when presented with the numbers at Thursday’s meeting.

Eric Silagy, who has been the board member most critical of NCF’s spending and has previously pressed college leadership on the matter, was the only one to offer remarks about the disparity. In limited comments, Silagy thanked Ben Watkins, director of the Florida Division of Bond Finance, for the presentation, which he said made university spending clear.

Now, Silagy said, “there can be no question anymore about what the numbers really are.” He added that Florida’s DOGE data will allow the Board of Governors to “address outliers where it’s not working” and determine how to reach “better outcomes for the students and the taxpayers.”

Silagy had clashed with NCF President Richard Corcoran, a former Republican lawmaker, on how much New College spends per student in past meetings. Silagy had estimated NCF spent $91,000 per student, while Corcoran initially said the number was closer to $68,000 per head. Corcoran later backtracked, agreeing the figure was between $88,000 and $91,000 per student.

That spending has ticked up even as critics in the community and state legislature are growing, and as the college saw its place in U.S. News & World Report rankings fall nearly 60 spots since the takeover. The rankings are highly valued by Florida lawmakers and system officials.

Asked about DOGE’s findings, a New College spokesperson said issues preceded current leadership.

“Thanks to Governor DeSantis and the Florida Legislature making a bold move to appoint new leadership with clear goals, the impact of New College’s revitalization is already visible with enrollment surpassing 900 students for the first time in history,” New College spokesperson James Miller wrote in an emailed statement to Inside Higher Ed. “As enrollment growth continues to skyrocket, cost-per-student and cost-per-graduate metrics will be one of the lowest of all top liberal arts schools in the country.”

Other Meeting Notes

Thursday’s board meeting also included an update from UCF President Alexander Cartwright, who told FLBOG members that the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) had approved the university for initial accreditation, amid an effort to switch accreditors that had been underway since 2023.

UCF, like other state institutions, sought to switch from Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges to another accreditor, following a change to state law in 2022 that mandated the switch after state officials clashed with the organization over various issues.

Cartwright said he received the news from HLC just hours earlier during the meeting.

State University System of Florida Chancellor Ray Rodrigues credited Cartwright for his work on the effort and criticized the Biden administration for allegedly slow-walking the process.

Rodrigues argued that the Biden administration “did not want to see reform in the area of accreditation” and “put up barriers and obstacles to states like Florida and universities like UCF” who were seeking to change accreditors while following Department of Education guidelines.

The Florida Board of Governors also approved a policy change that will now require professors at all state universities to publicly post course materials. The policy will require “universities to post current syllabi for all courses and course sections offered for the upcoming term” at least 45 days before the first day of class. Those materials will then remain online for at least five years.

That policy change, which has been the subject of recent media coverage highlighting faculty concerns about being targeted for course content, was passed as part of the consent agenda with no public discussion. No faculty members spoke about the policy change during the public comment portion of the meeting despite concerns expressed by professors in recent coverage.

The board did not take action or discuss a directive from DeSantis late last month to “pull the plug” on hiring workers on H-1B visas at state universities amid concerns that such hires are taking jobs that could otherwise be filled by Floridians. (However, critics have noted such jobs are often highly specialized and hard to fill.) The board plans to consider that directive in January.

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November 7, 2025
Congress Tackles College Cost Transparency

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-LA, advocated for his own legislation, the College Transparency Act, as potential solution to the issue.

Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images

After passing a sweeping higher ed overhaul in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Congress now has its sights set on reforming college cost transparency. In a hearing Thursday, members of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions questioned experts on how to make college pricing—and how costs compare to student outcomes—more understandable to families.

“You don’t buy a car without comparing prices, quality and finance options. The same is true for buying a home. Why can we not do this for higher ed?” asked Sen. Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican who chairs the committee and recently issued a request for information about the cost of higher education.

The hearing follows a House hearing in September on the same topic—and including one repeat witness, Justin Draeger, senior vice president of affordability for Strada Education Foundation.

Cost transparency has long been a pain point for both students and institutions, who have attempted to clarify via marketing campaigns, improved price calculator tools and tuition resets that their costs of attendance are often lower than their sticker price would indicate. Students, meanwhile, struggle to find reliable information about the costs of their prospective institutions, leaving them without the financial information they need to decide what institution to attend.

Now, Congressional Republicans are taking notice—and are tying efforts to improve affordability and cost transparency in with their existing focus on the return on investment for students and taxpayers.

At Thursday’s hearing, lawmakers and witnesses alike stressed how little information is available to students about the price of college, with research showing that most students overestimate the price of a public college education. Witnesses also brought up parents’ and families’ confusion about aid offer letters, which the Government Accountability Office has found often understate or fail to include the net price students will actually be paying.

Cassidy stressed the need for transparency as it relates to outcomes and return on investment. Students should be able to compare graduation rates and projected incomes of earning a degree at two different institutions, he said, to give families an accurate picture of what they’re paying for when they pay tuition.

The two Democratic witnesses, meanwhile, argued that college cost transparency is ineffective without also focusing on college affordability—something that is being worsened not only by increasing tuition costs but also by the larger cost-of-living crisis. Nontuition costs, said Mark Huelsman, Director of Policy and Advocacy at The Hope Center for Student Basic Needs, make up the bulk of the cost of attendance. He added that if student aren’t able to afford food or housing, that can severely impact their ability to succeed in college.

“I urge this committee not just to find ways to increase clarity, but to do everything in its power to lower the price that students pay,” he said.

Bipartisan Solutions?

Legislators pointed toward several potential legislative solutions that they said had support on both sides of the aisle. That list included Cassidy’s College Transparency Act, a bill that would provide more detailed information on costs, academic outcomes and career outcomes of specific programs and majors. Cassidy has championed the bill for years, alongside Sen. Elizabeth Warren, CTA’s other lead author, but Rep. Virginia Foxx opposed the measure when she led the House education committee. Foxx, who ultimately proposed her own effort to track students’ outcomes, resisted CTA due to privacy concerns. Cassidy noted during the hearing that the bill includes strict data security standards.

Meanwhile, Sen. Jon Husted, an Ohio Republican, also touted his bill with fellow Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama—the Debt, Earnings, and Cost Information Disclosure for Education Act—which would make changes to the Department of Education’s College Scorecard. It would require the resource to include information on average loan amounts in a given academic program, as well as default rates, how long it takes graduates to pay off their loans and how that debt compares to their earnings.

That information would help prospective students “know exactly what they’re getting themselves into before they make a decision to make a huge, huge investment,” Husted said.

Witnesses enumerated their own cost transparency wish lists.

Draeger said, among other things, that the federal government should regulate financial aid offers to use straightforward and standardized language. Huelsman, on the other hand, argued that the “simplest way, and the most powerful way” to make college costs transparent is to make college tuition- or debt-free. He also said that the Trump administration appears to be working against, not toward, cost transparency in higher ed.

“Many of the bipartisan reforms being discussed today require staffing capacity at the Department of Education that frankly, at this moment, do not exist, including at the Institute for Education Sciences,” he said. “Meanwhile, the Trump administration has worked to dismantle the CFPB, which provides oversight and essential information to borrowers, and conducts essential research on the student loan market. Sadly, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act takes us in the wrong direction on both affordability and transparency.”

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November 7, 2025
Higher Ed Feels “Cumulative Exhaustion” of Longest Shutdown

As the current government shutdown claims the mantle of longest in American history, uncertainty is ratcheting up for faculty, students and their institutions trying to budget for the weeks, months and years ahead.

Five weeks in, the federal government’s closure has disrupted nearly all aspects of campus life, including research, basic needs support and military-affiliated students’ access to tuition assistance.

On Monday, North Carolina State University joined a growing list of institutions that have limited spending and faced research disruptions as a result of the government’s inaction. The university said the ongoing shutdown has delayed payment for federally funded research activities worth more than $25 million per month, according to an internal memo reviewed by Inside Higher Ed.

“To ensure the long-term continuity of our research, we must take steps to preserve the university’s available resources that support our vital research projects,” administrators wrote in the memo to deans, directors and department heads. “Effective immediately, we are directing all colleges and units to limit all non-payroll expenses on federal contract, grant or other award mechanisms.”

While federal payments remain suspended, federally funded researchers at NC State won’t be able to spend money on new hires, nonessential travel, consulting services, and supplies and materials among other things.

Meanwhile, it’s still not clear when the government might reopen.

Health Care in Question

On Tuesday, Senate Republicans and Democrats failed for the 14th time in 36 days to negotiate an end to the shutdown. Those negotiations have centered on Democrats’ demands—and Republicans’ refusal—to extend enhanced tax credits for health insurance premiums through the Affordable Care Act, which are set to expire at the end of the year.

Without those subsidies, the cost of health insurance is expected to increase for millions of Americans, including thousands of adjunct professors who don’t qualify for health insurance through their institutions and have only a small margin of discretionary income.

“In this stalemate, there are no options I have to meaningfully plan for what the next month-and-a-half looks like going into the new year. There’s just no way to get ahead,” said Thomas Moomjy, a lecturer in American Studies at Rutgers University at New Brunswick who buys health insurance through New Jersey’s health care exchange. “I also have to account for the fact that the cost of everything else—electricity, car insurance—is going up, too.”

But the results of Tuesday’s elections, which saw wins for Democrats in numerous state and local races, may further complicate the path toward reopening the government.

President Donald Trump blamed Republican losses on the shutdown, emboldening Democrats to double down on their fight to extend the health insurance subsidies. “Donald Trump clearly is feeling pressure to bring this shutdown to an end,” Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor Thursday. “Well, I have good news for the president: Meet with Democrats, reopen the government.” So far, Trump has refused such a meeting, insisting that the government reopen prior to any negotiations.

None of this week’s developments offer hope to college students, or some faculty and staff, who aren’t sure if they’ll be able to afford basic necessities as the shutdown continues.

“At this point, I just want the government to reopen,” Moomjy said. “I’m not sure that will fix the ACA stuff, but we’re reaching a point of cumulative exhaustion. If this pushes on much further without [Congress] offering something to the American people to say, ‘We at least hear you and can help to lower it in some way,’ then it feels like they’re fighting each other with slogans. The people that are getting hurt are us down on the ground.”

Basic Needs Insecurity

Vulnerable Americans also include more than 1 million college students who rely on the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to buy food, and who didn’t receive those subsidies as planned on the first of the month.

On Monday, in response to court orders, Trump agreed to fund half of the program during the shutdown. After Tuesday’s election, he increased it to 65 percent of full funding, though experts say most SNAP recipients will get far less than that once they receive their already-late benefits. Despite those partial concessions, many colleges—which are already grappling with tight budgets as a result of Trump’s ongoing assault on higher education this year—are still scrambling to help their students cope with the partial loss to benefits this month.

On Thursday, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to fully fund SNAP.

Concerns about paying for food, health care and housing during the shutdown are top of mind for students and families, according to an informal survey conducted by the American Council on Education (ACE). And those worries extend beyond students and parents who work in the public sector or receive government assistance directly; 30 percent said their private sector jobs are suffering because of the shutdown.

“One [parent of a college student] said they work for a private contractor whose budgets partially depend on federal funding. The shutdown has reduced and delayed funding which affects their ability to provide services, earn their regular income and meet their basic needs,” Emmanual A. Guillory, senior director of government relations for ACE, told Inside Higher Ed. “Other [students and parents] said their inability to pay bills is causing strain on their mental health.”

Disruptions for Military Students

The shutdown is also directly threatening some students’ ability to stay enrolled at all.

While civilian students can at least access federal financial aid to cover their tuition during the shutdown, student-veterans and their dependents who rely on military benefits—including Military Tuition Assistance (TA) and the My Career Advancement Account (MyCAA) tuition assistance program for military spouses—to pay for their education are dealing with disruptions and delays to those payments.

Some institutions, including Austin Peay State University in Tennessee and the online learning behemoth Southern New Hampshire University, are helping military-affiliated students stay on track during the shutdown by allowing them to register without payments or tuition assistance in place.

According to an SNHU spokesperson, 2,840 undergraduates who receive military tuition assistance were impacted by the shutdown when they started a new term last week. If the government is still closed by the time the next graduate term starts next week, an additional 440 military-affiliated students who have already registered for classes will need waivers from SNHU.

Disruptions to GI Bill payments—caused by a system failure at the Department of Veterans Affairs and compounded by the shutdown—may also put up to 75,000 survivors and dependents of deceased military veterans at “serious” risk of losing access to post-secondary education subsidies, according to the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors.

Meanwhile, Senate Democrats and Republicans remain at an impasse on resuming government operations.

Guillory of ACE, who was at the Capitol this week for discussions about implementing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, said that from what he’s observed “it’s highly unlikely” that a deal to reopen the government will be reached by Friday.

But whenever it does finally happen, higher education institutions and their students and faculty who have been affected by the shutdown won’t just be able to pick up where they left off.

“There’s going to be a backlog of things that needs to get done,” Guillory said. “This is pushing everything back and leaving institutions in a place of uncertainty.”

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November 7, 2025