Tag: Jobs

  • Indiana Governor Responds to IU Plagiarism Allegations

    Indiana Governor Responds to IU Plagiarism Allegations

    Gov. Braun has appointed the entire board at Indiana University.

    Anna Moneymaker/Staff/Getty Images North America

    This article has been updated to reflect changes to WFYI’s original reporting

    Indiana governor Mike Braun said that Indiana University’s Board of Trustees should “take action” if allegations that President Pamela Whitten plagiarized her doctoral dissertation are true, WFYI reported.

    Braun’s comments this week came in response to reporter questions about the plagiarism allegations. A report earlier this year found parts of her dissertation, published in 1996, appeared to plagiarize other academic research. IU officials brushed off that report, telling media outlets that the university investigated the plagiarism allegations in the summer of 2024 and determined the claims had no merit. But last week, a local newspaper reported new findings that indicate Whitten copied other research.

    Braun, a Republican, said at a press event that he expects the board “to get on that right away,” responding to the hypothetical about the Whitten allegations. He didn’t specify how the trustees should look into the charges.

    IU’s board is entirely appointed by Braun, following a change to how trustees are selected earlier this year. Previously, the governor appointed six members while three others were elected by alumni. But a provision in Indiana’s latest budget bill now gives the governor full power over who serves on the board, which he quickly exercised, selecting new trustees in June and July.

    IU did not respond to a request for comment from Inside Higher Ed.

    The plagiarism allegations add further controversy to Whitten’s time at Indiana. Whitten, who has been president since 2021, has been accused of retaliating against a professor for criticizing her and stifling academic freedom, while also imposing broad restrictions on campus speech. Indiana has also tried to prevent professors who took buyouts from criticizing the university.

    IU faculty voted no confidence in Whitten last year following a string of controversies.

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  • The Myth of Antisemitism at Harvard

    The Myth of Antisemitism at Harvard

    As rumors swirl that Harvard University will soon capitulate to the Trump administration and pay a $500 million fine, it’s important to speak out against university officials who bow down to authoritarianism. I’ve argued for why Columbia and Brown were wrong to settle, how their agreements endanger academic freedom, and why these agreements leave universities more vulnerable to future attacks by the Trump regime.

    But it is also important to reiterate the fact that the reasons cited by the Trump administration for why Harvard must pay this money are lies. The Trump administration’s assertion that Harvard has committed antisemitic discrimination against Jews is a series of falsehoods fabricated by an antisemitic president and his obedient bureaucrats who seek to punish their perceived political enemies on fraudulent grounds.

    On June 30, 2025, the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism issued the finding that “Harvard University is in violent violation of Title VI.” No one knows what a “violent” violation is, since this bizarre term has never been used before, but the result was inevitable. Since Harvard had already been punished for imagined antisemitism far more harshly than any college in American history, with billions of dollars in grants cut off without due process, the finding of guilt was an inevitable ex post facto determination.

    Still, it’s important to examine this absurd finding of antisemitism at Harvard in depth, because it sets a standard that all colleges will be expected to obey, and because it requires the worst attacks on free speech ever ordered by the federal government.

    Most of the government’s report comes not from any investigation of its own, but from Harvard’s own self-examination of antisemitism on campus. The Trump administration’s Notice of Violation against Harvard is almost comical for its lack of evidence of any wrongdoing committed by Harvard.

    The Trump administration concluded, “We find that these and other actions contributed to a hostile environment for Jewish and Israeli students at Harvard,” citing a large number of cases of people engaged in peaceful expression, including several silent “study-in” protests at Harvard libraries. Incredibly, Harvard’s unjustifiable repression of silent, nondisruptive protests, which included banning dozens of students and faculty from the library, was used by the government as evidence that Harvard has done too little to protect Jewish students.

    When carrying a piece of paper into a library is punished by Harvard, it’s a travesty. When Harvard punishes its students and faculty for carrying a piece of paper into a library and this is cited by the government as insufficiently repressive of free speech, it’s a disaster.

    This also shows why Harvard may be willing to cut a deal with the government, despite the humiliation required to bow down before Trump: The repression demanded by the Trump regime is precisely what the Harvard administration has inflicted upon its students and faculty and wants to expand. Censorship is not an unfortunate side effect of any deal with Trump; it may be Harvard’s goal to use this agreement to provide an excuse for crushing dissent even more than it already has.

    The other primary evidence against Harvard cited by the Trump administration was a 2024 Harvard survey of 2,295 students, faculty and staff that found 61 percent of Jewish respondents felt there were academic or professional repercussions for expressing their political beliefs, and 15 percent of Jewish respondents said they did not feel physically safe on campus. But the Notice of Violation completely omits the fact that the same survey found that a much higher proportion of Muslims feared professional repercussions (92 percent) and feared for their physical safety (47 percent).

    The surveys indicate that Islamophobia at Harvard is a far worse problem than antisemitism. Yet Harvard hasn’t taken any significant actions against Islamophobia, and Harvard hasn’t adopted a new definition of Islamophobia to prohibit double standards in criticizing Muslim nations. And the Trump administration has done nothing despite the far greater fears expressed by Muslims at Harvard.

    Is there antisemitism at Harvard? Sure, there’s antisemitism everywhere, just as there is racism, sexism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia and every other form of bigotry. But we don’t hold universities responsible for banning these ideas under threat of massive government retaliation. In fact, we demand exactly the opposite: Colleges must protect hateful ideas and refuse to censor them.

    Far from being “deliberately indifferent” to antisemitism as the Notice of Violation claims, Harvard has bent over backward to suppress free speech, ban protests, denounce its own students and faculty, and punish people without due process, all in the name of censoring criticism of Israel. It’s difficult to name an American college that has done more to suppress free speech in the name of fighting “antisemitism” than Harvard, but no amount of repression will ever satisfy the Trump regime.

    I don’t want people to think that Harvard as an institution is free from antisemitism. Harvard has indeed engaged in antisemitism and deserves condemnation for doing so. In April, Harvard administrators banned Jews from holding a Passover seder, by far the most clear-cut example of institutional antisemitism at Harvard. Banning Jews from conducting a religious ceremony on campus is clearly antisemitic. But in this case, Harvard’s antisemitism was directed at Jews critical of Israel, so naturally the Trump administration completely ignores it.

    Even though it’s wrong for Harvard to try to suppress Jewish religious activities for political reasons, this isolated example of antisemitic repression would not justify a government investigation, let alone a finding of a “violent violation.” Private colleges should have wide discretion to make bad decisions, even those that violate their own standards of free expression and the religious rights of their students, without being subjected to government penalties.

    Likewise, the anti-Palestinian bias evident in Harvard’s repression of pro-Palestinian protests on campus is also a clear double standard and violation of Title VI’s rules protecting students based on national origin. But moral criticism, not government control, is the best way to fix the problem.

    I’ve argued that the repressive demands made against Harvard by the Trump regime are a blueprint for the obedience all colleges will be required to observe. The same is true of the fake “antisemitism” finding against Harvard, which provides a model for what future Title VI “investigations” will be. The government will make a list of every protest and controversial view expressed on a campus, quote a few right-wing students looking for a Columbia-style payday about how they are trembling in fear at hearing ideas they don’t like, and conclude that the university failed to do enough to protect the sensitive feelings of conservative students against the horrors of being criticized.

    Although this charade of antidiscrimination law has begun with the Trump administration pretending to care about antisemitism, it won’t be long before men start complaining about the hostile environment caused by feminists, white guys express their fear of anyone uttering the word “diversity” and, of course, all the straight people and devout Christians who are oppressed by the gays. If this kind of ridiculous evidence of “harassment” is accepted against a university for allowing free speech, then it can be equally applied by the Trump administration to any college that permits students and faculty to criticize right-wing dogmas about race, gender or sexuality.

    If Harvard submits to the Trump administration, it will be endangering its own finances, abandoning the values of academic freedom and betraying its students and faculty. But even worse, Harvard’s obedience will give the Trump administration license to pursue every college, for every implausible reason, until they submit.

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  • mRNA Vaccine Research Cuts Blow to Innovation

    mRNA Vaccine Research Cuts Blow to Innovation

    Academic researchers are worried that the government’s plans to stop investing in the development of messenger RNA vaccines, a technology university scientists first used to help develop the COVID-19 vaccines, will undermine the United States’ standing as a global leader in biomedical research and development.

    As promising as mRNA technology may be for treating a range of maladies, including numerous types of cancer and autoimmune diseases, its role in developing the COVID vaccine has thrust it into a political crossfire, fueled by the Trump administration’s smoldering criticisms of the Biden administration’s handling of the pandemic.

    Last week, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., director of the Department of Health and Human Services, who frequently cites misinformation about vaccines and other public health issues, announced that the department is winding down mRNA vaccine research under the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority and canceling $500 million worth of contracts and grants with numerous biotech companies and Emory University in Atlanta.

    “We reviewed the science, listened to the experts, and acted,” Kennedy, a lawyer by training, said in a statement, claiming that “the data show these vaccines fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like COVID and flu. We’re shifting that funding toward safer, broader vaccine platforms that remain effective even as viruses mutate.”

    Jeff Coller, director of the RNA Innovation Center at Johns Hopkins University, whose own graduate student helped develop Moderna’s COVID vaccine, said that “mRNA technology is incredibly misunderstood by the public and many of our politicians.”

    Despite that, “the science has always been consistently clear about the powerful medical benefits of the mRNA platform,” he said. “It’s saved millions of lives, is incredibly safe, has huge potential and will revolutionize medicine in the next 100 years. Yet, we’re ceding American leadership in this technology.”

    The half-a-billion-dollar cut comes at the same time that the Trump administration has withdrawn support for federally funded scientific research that doesn’t align with its ideological views, including projects focused on vaccine hesitancy, LGBTQ+ health and climate change.

    According to a report from STAT News, the 181-page document Kennedy cited as his evidence that mRNA vaccines aren’t safe or effective references disputed studies written by other skeptics of COVID mitigation protocols, including stay-at-home orders and vaccines.

    Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health, who criticized the NIH’s pandemic guidance in 2020, has also publicly defended the decision on Fox News, Steven Bannon’s podcast War Room and in an opinion article he published in The Washington Post Tuesday.

    In his op-ed, Bhattacharya acknowledged that mRNA is a “promising technology” that “may yet deliver breakthroughs in treating diseases such as cancer,” but that “as a vaccine intended for broad public use, especially during a public health emergency, the platform has failed a crucial test: earning public trust.”

    “Unfortunately, the Biden administration did not manage public trust in the coronavirus vaccines, largely because it chose a strategy of mandates rather than a risk-based approach and did not properly acknowledge Americans’ growing concerns regarding safety and effectiveness,” he wrote.

    ‘Political Shot Across the Bow’

    The vast majority of scientists agree that the mRNA-based COVID vaccine—which was created in record time as a result of President Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed, launched in 2020—is generally safe and effective.

    “I’m concerned about [the cut] weakening our country and putting us at a disadvantage,” said an mRNA researcher who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation. “The promise of mRNA is almost limitless, and I’d like to see those advances being made in this country. But currently it seems those advances are more likely to come from Europe and Asia. I’m also worried about the impact this could have on our economy—this is a growing field of industry.”

    Coller, of Johns Hopkins, said Kennedy’s decision to withdraw funding for mRNA vaccine research has more than financial implications.

    “It was a political shot across the bow of the entire research community, both in industry and academia,” Coller said. “What it says is that the government doesn’t want to support this technology and is going to make sure it doesn’t happen. If you’re an academic thinking about starting a new program in mRNA medicines, don’t waste your time.”

    And now it will be even easier for political whims to drive the government’s scientific research priorities. Last week, Trump issued an executive order that will put political appointees—rather than subject-matter experts—in charge of federal grant-making decisions.

    Heather Pierce, senior director for science policy and regulatory counsel at the Association of American Medical Colleges, said that while Kennedy’s decision won’t end all of the nation’s mRNA research, “the indication that a certain technology or scientific area won’t be pursued regardless of the progress made so far is worrisome as a concept.”

    That’s in part because “when we unilaterally close the door on a specific type of research or technology, we don’t know what would have come from that,” she said. “It’s not to say that every research project using every technology and scientific tool will necessarily lead to a cure or breakthrough, but the initial funding of these projects shows that there was promise that made it worth exploring.”

    Both Kennedy and Bhattacharya have said the government will continue to support research on other uses of mRNA technology unrelated to infectious disease vaccines. But experts say separating those research areas isn’t so simple.

    “They’re all interconnected,” said Florian Krammer, a professor of vaccinology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “If you take away funding in the infectious disease space and innovation doesn’t happen there, it’s also not happening in other spaces where mRNA technology is used.”

    That will create a “huge problem for researchers,” he added, “because a lot of fields are using this technology, and if it’s not moving forward, it closes doors.”

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  • Judge Keeps Alabama’s Anti-DEI Law in Place for Now

    Judge Keeps Alabama’s Anti-DEI Law in Place for Now

    The judge denied a motion for a preliminary injunction to block the anti-DEI law.

    Just_Super/iStock/Getty Images Plus

    Ruling in part that professors lack First Amendment protections in the classroom, a federal judge denied an effort from college faculty and students in Alabama to block a 2024 state law that banned diversity, equity and inclusion programs as well as the teaching of so-called divisive concepts.

    The plaintiffs, who include students from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and professors at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, argued in court filings and at hearings that the legislation known as Senate Bill 129 amounted to state-sponsored censorship and infringed on their rights under the First and 14th Amendments. The professors alleged that they had to cancel class projects or events and faced other questions about their classroom conduct from administrators because of the law. They’ve also changed course material as a result.

    R. David Proctor, chief judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, found that while the professors and the Alabama NAACP had standing to sue, they weren’t likely to succeed at this time. For instance, he ruled that the professors aren’t protected by the First Amendment because their “in-class instruction constitutes government speech.”

    Furthermore, Proctor wrote, based on other rulings in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, “when there is a dispute about what is taught in the classroom, the university’s interests outweigh those of a professor, and the professor’s interest in academic freedom and free speech do not displace the university’s interest inside the classroom.”

    The plaintiffs said Proctor’s ruling was disappointing.

    “I feel incredibly dismayed that SB 129 is allowed to continue going into the new school year,” said Sydney Testman, one of the students who sued, in a statement. “As a senior at University of Alabama at Birmingham, I’ve seen firsthand how SB 129 has transformed my college campus for the worst. Voices have been silenced, opportunities have been revoked, and meaningful community engagement has faded. This decision undermines the need for students to properly feel a sense of belonging and inclusion on campus.”

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  • UChicago Freezing Ph.D. Admissions for Multiple Programs

    UChicago Freezing Ph.D. Admissions for Multiple Programs

    The University of Chicago’s Arts and Humanities Division is reducing how many new Ph.D. students it admits for the 2026–27 academic year across about half of its departments and completely halting Ph.D. admissions elsewhere. Multiple language programs are among those affected.

    In a Tuesday email that Inside Higher Ed obtained, Arts and Humanities dean Deborah Nelson told faculty, staff and Ph.D. students, “We will accept a smaller overall Ph.D. cohort across seven departments: Art History, Cinema and Media Studies, East Asian Languages and Civilizations, English Language and Literature, Linguistics, Music (composition), and Philosophy.” The university didn’t tell Inside Higher Ed how many fewer Ph.D. students would be accepted across those departments.

    “Other departments will pause admissions,” Nelson wrote.

    Andrew Ollett, an associate professor of South Asian languages and civilizations, said that means no new Ph.D. students for these departments: classics, comparative literature, Germanic studies, Middle Eastern studies, Romance languages and literatures, Slavic languages and literatures, and South Asian languages and civilizations, plus the ethnomusicology and history and theory of music programs in the music department.

    While the university didn’t provide an interview or respond to multiple written questions, a spokesperson did point out that the UChicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy and Practice is also pausing Ph.D. admissions, while the Harris School of Public Policy is pausing admissions for the Harris Ph.D., the political economy Ph.D. and the master of arts in public policy with certificate in research methods.

    “A small number of PhD and master’s programs at the University of Chicago will pause admissions for the 2026–2027 academic year while divisions and schools undertake comprehensive reviews of the programs’ missions and structures,” UChicago said in a statement. It said the aim is “ensuring the highest-quality training for the next generation of scholars” and the pauses “will not affect currently enrolled students.”

    UChicago, which faces debt issues, has become yet another example of well-known universities freezing or scaling back Ph.D. admissions and programs amid financial pressures and other factors. In November, before Trump retook the presidency, Boston University said it was pausing accepting new Ph.D. students in a dozen humanities and social sciences programs, including philosophy, English and history. In February, the Universities of Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh announced pauses, following other institutions. 

    But UChicago’s reductions for language programs also reflect a broader trend of universities scaling back foreign language education offerings. In 2023, West Virginia University became infamous in academe for its leaders’ decision to eliminate all foreign language degrees.

    “It’s sad and pathetic,” Ollett said of the pause at UChicago, “because it represents the domination of one set of values, which is money, over the values that we say that we are pursuing in our lives as faculty members, as educators and as researchers.”

    He argued that the university can’t say it’s committed to the humanities as a field for producing knowledge while turning away from Ph.D. programs.

    Nelson’s email said, “This one-time decision applies only to the 2026–2027 academic year.” But Clifford Ando, the Robert O. Anderson Distinguished Service Professor of Classics, History and the College, questioned whether this is just a pause.

    “I see no reason to think that we would resume doctoral education if we are simultaneously dismantling the curricula that sustain undergraduate training in these fields,” Ando wrote in an email sent to a classical studies Listserv. “Why would one have a doctoral program in a discipline that undergraduates can’t even study?”

    Ollett also said this comes as Nelson has pushed to consolidate smaller departments. He said a big question for the coming academic year was “Do we do Ph.D. admissions if we’re not sure that our department is going to exist?”

    Not Rule by Committee

    Ando provided Inside Higher Ed the “charge” UChicago gave to the Arts and Humanities Languages Working Group on June 17.

    “UChicago is known as a global leader in the instruction of ancient and modern languages,” the charge begins. “Language instruction and expertise is not simply a valuable object in its own right; it is an important foundation for the larger UChicago College education, for graduate education, and for the research and scholarship of our faculty.”

    But it then says, “language instruction at this extraordinary scope is also expensive.” It listed several questions for the committee to explore, including:

    • “Should there be a universal or suggested minimum number of students?
    • “Do we need to teach every class every year?
    • “Are there languages we no longer need to teach?
    • “Are there opportunities for partnerships with peer institutions (with similar standards and schedules) to share language instruction?
    • “How can we use technology more effectively to support and enhance language instruction?”

    Ollett said, “We teach more than 50 languages in the division, which seems to be too much because the committee was asked to find ways of getting that number down.”

    Tyler Williams, another associate professor in the South Asian languages and civilizations department and a member of the committee, said the committee members “unanimously declined to endorse any of the suggestions about cutting languages or outsourcing language teaching.” He said Nelson “did not wait for the committee to submit its report,” nor did she “consult with that committee before she made this decision.”

    Ando also provided the charge for a separate Ph.D. Working Group, which outlined a number of “existential challenges” for Ph.D. programs. Those include significantly reduced demand for entry-level faculty, increasing costs for the university and long times to degree, which can deter students.

    Additionally, the document notes that the programs are facing “heightened public skepticism about the value of what is taught in Arts & Humanities PhD programs, and how it is taught. Yet Ph.D. programs remain a critical part of the research university model, necessary to teaching, research, scholarship, and creativity.”

    Among other questions, that committee was asked to explore whether there should be a minimum size for Ph.D. cohorts in order to offer a program.

    Williams said that this committee indicated it wasn’t going to endorse an admissions pause, but said it should be divisionwide if it occurred.

    Nelson’s email announcing the changes stressed that “this decision is not the recommendation of any committee.”

    Williams said the Ph.D. admissions cuts are part of “a crisis manufactured by the university administration itself.” Ollett said he worries for the future of their field.

    “We are quite unique in that there’s not a lot of South Asia area studies departments in the United States, and especially ones that train the next generation of scholars,” he said. He said he’s “already turned away prospective Ph.D. students because of this, and that’s just going to keep happening.”

    He said he worries that “if we’re not doing it, no one will do it, and the field will wither and die.”

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  • Trump “Chipping Away” at DACA and Other Protections

    Trump “Chipping Away” at DACA and Other Protections

    Tricia McLaughlin, assistant press secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, recently told the undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children known as Dreamers, who have for years participated in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, to self-deport.

    She insisted that the Obama-era program, which protects these individuals from deportation and gives them work authorization, “does not confer any form of legal status in this country.”

    “We encourage every person here illegally to take advantage of this offer and reserve the chance to come back to the U.S. the right, legal way,” McLaughlin said in a statement to NPR.

    Her comments contradict those made by President-elect Donald Trump in a December interview with Meet the Press. He said then that he’d willingly work with Democrats on a plan to keep Dreamers in the country.

    “They were brought into this country many years ago,” he told Meet the Press. “Some of them are no longer young people, and in many cases they’ve become successful. They have great jobs … We’re going to have to do something with them.”

    This conflicting rhetoric is emblematic of the tenuous position Dreamers, including thousands of college students, have occupied for years, uncertain whether past protections and legal promises will hold. Today, most of the country’s roughly 400,800 undocumented students don’t have DACA status. But the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration estimates about 119,000 are eligible for the program based on 2022 data.

    DACA has suffered—and survived—attacks before, including from Trump during his first term, but immigrant advocates say this administration is launching precision strikes against Dreamers; instead of moving to end the DACA program wholesale, they’re casting doubt on the program’s legal power, and, one by one, targeting other benefits historically extended to Dreamers.

    Gaby Pacheco, president and CEO of TheDream.US, a scholarship provider for undocumented students, said the federal government is “chipping away” at protections and public benefits for this population.

    The administration is “coming at it from different angles in different ways and creating a lot of chaos,” Pacheco said. “A lot of people are confused and are trying to figure out what’s next and how to protect themselves,” including students and higher ed leaders.

    A ‘Methodical, Surgical’ Attack

    Legal challenges to DACA go back more than a decade. The U.S. Supreme Court prevented the program from expanding in 2016. Then, during Trump’s first term, he ordered the end of DACA under pressure from Republican lawmakers. When the Supreme Court ruled against his plans to immediately end the program, Trump tried to curb DACA in 2020 by rejecting new applications and limiting the renewal period.

    Earlier this year, a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit unanimously affirmed a 2023 district court order that deemed DACA unlawful, but the judges also issued a stay, leaving the status quo unchanged for now. No new DACA applications have been processed since the judge who made that order, U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen, first ruled against the program in 2021. Hanen issued a new order in late July asking for additional written arguments from the parties in the case.

    Pacheco said that now the government is doing a “very methodical, surgical” unwinding of Dreamers’ rights.

    For example, the administration revoked DACA recipients’ eligibility for Affordable Care Act health insurance. Some Dreamers with DACA status, including students, have been detained by law enforcement.

    Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Justice sued four states for allowing local undocumented students, with and without DACA, to pay in-state tuition, successfully ending these policies in Texas and Oklahoma with support from state lawmakers. The Department of Education is also investigating five universities—the University of Louisville, the University of Nebraska, the University of Miami, the University of Michigan and Western Michigan University—alleging scholarships they provide for undocumented and DACA students violate civil rights law.

    “There has been an escalating series of attacks and targeting of undocumented students, including those with DACA, and the institutions seeking to enroll and support them under this administration,” said Miriam Feldblum, president and CEO of the Presidents’ Alliance. “Over all, for students with and without DACA, this has become an increasingly anxious time” as well as for “campuses who are being targeted.”

    A DACA recipient, who gained DACA status in 2014 and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 2022, said the slew of new policies is “really affecting” day-to-day life for undocumented immigrants, including those in the program.

    The recipient, who asked to remain anonymous, said the DACA program offered some sense of safety, but that protection now feels “very thin,” like a “Band-Aid on a wound.”

    “I can’t imagine what it must feel like to be, especially a younger student or somebody who is currently in college,” they said. “You’re probably in the middle of your academic career and your state has now rescinded in-state tuition … How do you finish your education? What are you supposed to do?”

    ‘Just the Beginning’

    Diego Sánchez, director of policy and strategy at the Presidents’ Alliance, said in a recent webinar that he worries the administration’s coordinated attack on DACA, and Dreamers over all, could signal a larger-scale war on the policy. He believes it’s a “very real concern right now” that the Trump administration could try to end DACA through the formal rule-making process—posting a proposed rule for public feedback, then issuing a regulation to phase out the program.

    “We haven’t seen a formal announcement, but the rhetoric coming out of DHS, along with the uptick in enforcement, the detention of Dreamers all over the country, some who’ve had DACA, some who have never benefited from DACA, suggests that this may be under serious consideration,” he said.

    Pacheco also fears life for Dreamers in college is going to get worse. She noted that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act poured about $170 billion into immigration enforcement. And while ICE doesn’t have access to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid database, a data-sharing agreement between the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Homeland Security has students and their advocates worried about immigrant students’ data. Meanwhile, the federal government has plenty of data on DACA recipients, who have been dutifully filing their renewals every two years.

    “I always try to be very careful how I say this to our students and to folks when I’m speaking, but this is really just the beginning,” she said.

    Higher Ed as ‘Lines of Defense’

    Immigrant advocates say colleges and universities have a vital role to play in making DACA and undocumented students safer.

    Pacheco believes higher ed institutions over all are “one of the biggest lines of defense for students.” College officials can have plans in place for potential ICE visits and insist that law enforcement show warrants if they come looking for undocumented students, she said, and the fact of being a student, if they’re detained, can elicit public sympathy. And campuses have networks of alumni who can “rally around” them.

    “One of the safest places where they can be is in a classroom, in an institution of higher learning,” Pacheco said.

    Feldblum said higher ed institutions can also support Dreamers by not complying pre-emptively with the Trump administration’s legal challenges to benefits. For example, scholarships based on immigration status are “permissible,” she said, provided they don’t discriminate based on race, ethnicity, national origin or shared ancestry.

    “The key here is to be clear that these programs, this status, is lawful,” Feldblum said. “And while the federal government may be attempting to threaten different regulations or programs … states and colleges and universities need to make sure they are not pre-emptively changing policy or regulation when the law does not require them to do so.”

    Pacheco said she empathizes with higher ed leaders who are nervous to put their federal funds at risk by showing public support for their undocumented students. But she believes, at some point, higher ed is going to need to push back.

    “When is it going to be enough?” she said. “And when are we going to draw a line and fight back and stand up for academic freedom and stand up for what these institutions have pledged, which is to educate everyone and to ensure that everyone has access to an equitable education?”

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  • Survey Explores How Colleges Rate Their Value Versus Cost

    Survey Explores How Colleges Rate Their Value Versus Cost

    Growing public skepticism in higher education has fueled a number of polls and surveys aimed at understanding how families, students and taxpayers perceive the value of a college degree.

    For instance, a majority of Americans believe at least one type of postsecondary credential holds value, according to a 2025 study by Gallup, and most parents want their kids to attend college. But few of those studies have looked at how colleges and universities see themselves improving students’ lives.

    A new survey by Tyton Partners released Thursday found three in four college stakeholders strongly believe their institution’s education is worth the cost of tuition. However, two-year institutions were more likely to say this is true, compared to private universities.

    Only 28 percent of administrators and support staff working at private four-year institutions strongly agree that their institution’s education is worth the cost, compared to 68 percent of community colleges. The survey, fielded in late June and early July, includes responses from more than 1,600 stakeholders at 825 institutions.

    The sector breakdown wasn’t a surprise to Catherine Shaw, Tyton’s managing director, in part because of how the vocational missions of two-year colleges to prepare the local workforce compare to four-year private institutions that focus more on holistic student development.

    “That part of it was so squarely within the value proposition of the reasons we have two-year degrees,” Shaw said.

    For students, there’s a direct relationship between those who say their college is worth the cost and those who think the college prepares students well for jobs and careers. Among the 792 student respondents who do believe their college is worth the cost, 95 percent believe college is preparing them well for jobs and careers. Inversely, fewer than half (48 percent) of students who don’t see the value of their degree believe college is preparing them well for a career.

    “In short, perceptions of value hinge on whether institutions effectively prepare students for the workforce,” the report states. This was true regardless of an institution’s sector, size, selectivity or demographic makeup.

    This was the first time Tyton’s survey has asked respondents about perceived value, which Shaw said was in part because of larger national studies gauging perceived value among individuals in the U.S.

    “It was interesting that there wasn’t the institutional perspective captured at scale [in previous surveys],” Shaw said. “We wanted to contextualize [the conversation] and see if our institutional stakeholders and our students are asking themselves the same questions and how they feel relevant, because they’ve got skin in the game.”

    What Creates Value

    More than a quarter of all institutions pointed to career readiness as a top college outcome beyond earning a credential, but two-year colleges were most likely to say this was the top outcome (37 percent). In comparison, the most popular outcome among four-year public and private institutions was critical thinking skills (41 percent and 36 percent, respectively).

    Faculty members were most likely to say critical thinking skills were a top college outcome, which Shaw said makes sense given their role in higher education. Administrators and advisers were more likely to point to career readiness as a top outcome for students.

    Tyton’s survey also asked administrators, support staff and faculty members which support services improve students’ value of education. Academic and career advising rose to the top, with over half of respondents in all roles ranking these services higher than tutoring, financial aid counseling or mental health counseling.

    How institutions deliver high-impact career preparation varied based on institution type. Thirty-eight percent of community colleges said apprenticeships were the most meaningful measures to improve student employment metrics, followed by career pathways at 35 percent.

    In comparison, embedded career exploration ranked highest among four-year institutions (54 percent of public universities, 50 percent of private) as did guaranteed internships for all students (31 percent of four-year public institutions) and experiential learning coursework (33 percent of four-year privates).

    Student awareness of these opportunities is the greatest barrier to career readiness, according to career services professionals (45 percent), followed by limited capacity (17 percent) and a lack of consistent programming throughout the year (13 percent). Fewer than half of surveyed students (42 percent) said they were aware of career services available to them.

    “This focus is especially timely as institutions prepare for increased scrutiny under new federal measures, such as the earnings accountability test,” the report states. “Programs that do not result in gainful employment risk losing eligibility for federal aid. Embedding career readiness across offerings isn’t just about boosting ROI: It’s fast becoming essential for institutional viability.”

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  • Dept. of Ed Clarifies What Race-Based Data Must Be Reported

    Dept. of Ed Clarifies What Race-Based Data Must Be Reported

    President Trump first issued the executive action Aug. 7 mandating colleges and universities submit data to verify that they are not unlawfully considering race in admissions.

    Roman Didkivskyi/Getty Images

    The Trump administration released further details on its order for colleges to supply more racially disaggregated admissions data and wants to hear from the public about its plan.

    A draft of the proposal, which will officially be published Friday on the Federal Register, states that certain institutions will be required to collect and report comprehensive data about their admissions decisions going back five years. It must be broken down by race and sex and include students’ high school GPA, test scores, time of application (early decision, early access or regular decision) and financial aid status, among other things.

    However, the new survey component, which the Department of Education is calling the Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement, will not affect all colleges and universities—just four-year institutions that use “selective college admissions,” as they “have an elevated risk of noncompliance with the civil rights laws,” officials wrote in the notice.

    (The document does not say anything about reporting data on legacy admissions, another practice that, like affirmative action, has received public pushback in recent years.)

    Members of the public will have 60 days to comment on the notice. Among other things, the department wants feedback on what institutions should be subject to the new reporting requirements as well as the anticipated burden the request will place on university staff.

    Some higher education scholars and officials are already chiming in with their concerns informally.

    University of Tennessee higher education professor Robert Kelchen wrote in a post on LinkedIn that not only will the request be a “substantial lift” for colleges, but also for staff at the department who run the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System and will manage the data on the back end.

    The Department of Education laid off nearly half its staff—including most of the employees at the National Center for Education Statistics, which would collect and analyze the data—in March.

    “I’d love to see the survey form where all of this data would be collected—because after years of sitting in [meetings] where we figured these things out, the sheer number of variables/elements and the lack of any definition around the vagueness of them demonstrates the loss of the knowledgeable NCES staff they lost,” wrote Carolyn Mata, a consultant who works in institutional research, in a response to Kelchen’s post. “This is a case of throwing everything possible at the wall.”

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  • District Court Judge Continues to Demand OCR Reinstate Staff

    District Court Judge Continues to Demand OCR Reinstate Staff

    The Office for Civil Rights handles complaints concerning discrimination in federally funded education institutions.

    Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

    A federal district court judge refused the Trump administration’s request to vacate a previous ruling that prohibited the Department of Education from laying off nearly half its Office for Civil Rights staff.

    The decision was made by Massachusetts judge Myong Joun on Wednesday and involved the case Victim Rights Law Center v. Department of Education. It comes just a month after the Supreme Court reversed a preliminary injunction in a similar case, New York v. McMahon, which Joun also oversaw. 

    In the new order, the district court judge argues that the cases, and therefore their related rulings, are separate. 

    The New York case, which was filed by multiple state attorneys general, addressed the reduction in force more broadly, Joun said. By comparison, the Victim Rights Law Center case more specifically addresses the RIF at OCR and how it may hold the office back from completing its statutory mandate of protecting students from discrimination.

    So, although the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to continue with the reduction in force broadly, Joun argues, it does not mean the enjoinment of layoffs within OCR is no longer applicable.

    Trump officials “present two arguments for why vacatur or a stay are appropriate: first, that the Supreme Court granted the stay in a related case, and second, that the two related cases are ‘indistinguishable in all pertinent respects.’ I am unconvinced by either argument,” Joun wrote. “Although this case and New York are related, I issued a separate Preliminary Injunction Order to address the unique harms that Plaintiffs alleged arose from their reliance on the OCR.”

    He also noted that even though the high court judges reversed one preliminary injunction, that does not mean they have made a final ruling on the merit of the RIF.

    Finally, Joun went on to say that the defendants’ motion for stay has little standing, as “they have not substantially complied with the preliminary injunction order” in the first place. Reporting from The 74 backs this up, showing that none of the 276 fired OCR employees have been reinstated.

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  • Rethinking Pathways for Students in Rural Communities

    Rethinking Pathways for Students in Rural Communities

    In rural parts of the U.S., 36 percent of jobs that pay enough for an individual to be self-sufficient require at least a bachelor’s degree, yet only 25 percent of rural workers hold such degrees. Many rural communities do not have a university or four-year college nearby. As a result, students in these communities are likely to start their educational journey to a bachelor’s at a community college. Of the nearly 1,000 community colleges nationwide, more than a quarter are in rural areas and many others are designated as rural-serving.

    The paths to a bachelor’s degree for rural students are not as straightforward as they are for students in urban or suburban areas with higher concentrations of four-year institutions. For rural community college students, there are four primary routes to earning a bachelor’s degree. As described below, the first three, more conventional, paths do not always work well. But there is also a fourth path—the community college bachelor’s degree program. While still relatively rare, this path is growing in popularity because, when well designed, it is effective in enabling place-bound students to earn bachelor’s degrees and secure good jobs in their communities.

    Path 1: Transfer to a Four-Year University

    The first path is to transfer to a four-year college and either become a residential student there or commute a long distance to get back and forth to campus from home. Laramie County Community College, where one of us is president, has worked with the University of Wyoming, the state’s only university, located in Laramie, to develop guaranteed transfer pathways to UW bachelor’s programs in major fields of economic importance to the region and state.

    But only a minority of LCCC students—mostly younger students who have financial support from their families—can realistically afford to become full-time residential students at UW. Most community college students have jobs and families they can’t leave for several months a year, even if they could afford room and board in addition to tuition (which few can). Commuting to UW is difficult even for LCCC students who live in relatively nearby Cheyenne, almost an hour’s drive from Laramie on a road that crosses the highest point on the Continental Divide and is often closed in the winter. For LCCC students who live in outlying areas and for students at other Wyoming community colleges, commuting to UW is not realistic.

    Path 2: Pursue a Bachelor’s Degree Online

    Theoretically, this should be an effective option for rural, place-bound community college students. In reality, this avenue is not feasible for the many rural students who live in “digital deserts” or face “last-mile” barriers to broadband access.

    Even when internet access is not a problem, many students struggle to complete online programs. Only a quarter of community college students who transfer to online universities complete a bachelor’s degree within four years of transferring. This compares to 57 percent of community college starters who transfer to a public four-year institution. In general, undergraduates who take all their courses online are less likely to succeed than those who take just some courses online. And online success rates are especially low for low-income students, those from other underserved groups or those who face other challenges typical in rural areas, such as limited access to transportation and childcare.

    Path 3: Complete a Bachelor’s Degree Through a Community College–Based University Center

    The third path is for students to take upper-division coursework through a university center arrangement, where the four-year university has a physical presence on the community college campus. These arrangements vary in design but typically involve university faculty teaching courses on the community college campus. While reasonable in concept, university centers are often challenging to operate. Beyond common issues of ownership, oversight and authority associated with programs run by two separate institutions, in rural colleges, such programs also often do not enroll enough students to make it worth the investment by the university and thus are difficult to sustain, financially and politically.

    A Fourth Path: The Community College Bachelor’s Degree

    That leaves community college bachelor’s degree programs, which are often the best option for rural students. Research indicates that these programs not only provide effective access to bachelor’s programs for older working students with families and others who are place-bound but also enable these students to secure good jobs.

    Some question whether community colleges should offer bachelor’s degrees, arguing that they duplicate university offerings and represent a form of mission creep. But community college bachelor’s degrees tend to be unlike conventional bachelor’s degrees from universities. First, they are explicitly designed as applied credentials to meet specific regional workforce needs. In the best cases, community college bachelor’s degrees are reverse-engineered collaboratively with employers to meet these needs.

    Second, they are also often designed to help the many applied associate degree graduates of community colleges find a more effective path to completing a bachelor’s degree, in which their applied coursework is built upon, not disregarded. Finally, they are delivered at home so that graduates of community colleges who are tied to their local area can advance into family-supporting jobs. They are offered through institutions that most students are already familiar with and by people with whom students already have relationships.

    For example, LCCC offers a bachelor’s of applied science in health-care administration, with accelerated eight-week courses, offered at convenient times and through a combination of online and in-person modalities. The program is designed to provide the many working health-care clinicians with applied associate degrees (e.g., nurses, sonographers, radiology techs, etc.) a path to management jobs. This program was developed collaboratively with numerous health-care employers to address the strong demand for talent in health-care administration and provide their employees with a viable path to a bachelor’s degree, without requiring them to start over or relocate to another community.

    The number of bachelor’s degrees awarded by community colleges nationally is still small: fewer than 17,000 annually, compared to more than 1.3 million awarded by public universities. Still, policymakers in a growing number of states are recognizing that rural community colleges are well positioned to meet the needs of students and employers for workforce bachelor’s programs not available from other providers. Currently, community colleges in 24 states are authorized to offer bachelor’s degrees in particular fields, yet the majority (nearly 80 percent) of these colleges are located in just seven states. Thus, there is plenty of room to grow. Bachelor’s programs offered by rural community colleges provide a model for what we hope is becoming a national movement to rethink bachelor’s education for the large number of place-bound students who must work and care for their families but need a bachelor’s degree to advance in their careers.

    Joe Schaffer is president of Laramie County Community College. Davis Jenkins is a senior research scholar and Hana Lahr is assistant director of research and director of applied learning at the Community College Research Center at Columbia University’s Teachers College.

    Ascendium Education Group provided funding for this work.

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