Tag: Latest

  • The trouble with the latest accreditation round for initial teacher education

    The trouble with the latest accreditation round for initial teacher education

    English teacher education has been the subject of ongoing and turbulent policy change for many years. But the radical shift in agenda instigated by the Department for Education (DfE) market review between 2022 and 2024 brought this change to another level. The policy instigated a reaccreditation process for all initial teacher education (ITE) providers awarding qualified teacher status.

    The Conservative government’s attempt at “delivering world-class teacher development” ended up decimating the landscape of ITE, leaving those of us left to pick up the pieces. Now DfE has opened a second round of the accreditation process – has it learned any lessons?

    What went wrong

    Stage 1 of the process the first time around included a written proposal of over 7,000 words outlining compliance with the new standards, including curriculum alignment to the ITE core curriculum framework. Additional details and evidence of partnership and mentoring systems and processes also had to be included. Successful applicants progressed to stage 2. Here, rigorous scrutiny of further preparation and plans began, with each institution being allocated a DfE associate to work with for a further twelve months.

    The additional workload this required stretched the capacity and resources of all education departments within higher education institutions. Academics were simultaneously delivering ongoing provision, continuing recruitment, and writing additional postgraduate (and for many undergraduate) revised provision – and many were under the threat of redundancy. All of the above, under constant threat of looming Ofsted visits.

    A previous Wonkhe article likened to the process to the Netflix series Squid Game, using the metaphor to describe the experience for existing ITT providers – meet the confusing demands and conflicting eligibility requirements, or you’re out.

    A significant number of providers failed to secure accreditation, either losing or giving up their status, with provider numbers reducing from 240 to 179.

    At the time the sector offered collegiate support, forming working groups to foster joint responses when collating the sheer volume of output required. Pressures surfaced including stress and anxiety caused by the increase in workload. Insecurity of jobs and the conflicting and at times confusing advice brought many individuals to the point of exhaustion and burnout.

    Squid: off the menu?

    You would therefore expect an announcement of the opportunity for providers to re-enter the market to be met with a sense of joy. Wouldn’t you?

    However, the new round is only for any lead provider currently working in partnership with an accredited provider. These partnerships are only in their first year and were encouraged by the DfE because of the “cold spots” created when thirteen higher education institutions failed to pass the previous process – despite having proven a history of quality provision.

    The creation of such partnerships added yet more stress and workload to all concerned. No legal advice on governance was provided. They proved incredibly complex to navigate, requiring long standing buy-in to make them workable and financially viable. As of yet no advice has been published of how to exit these partnership arrangements.

    Providers wishing to begin delivering ITT from September 2026 must meet the eligibility criteria. The window for the applications will be open for a much shorter period than the previous round, with the process and outcome to be completed 30 June 2025. This contrasts to the 18 months previously required for providers to demonstrate their “market readiness” in the previous round.

    Stage 1 of the new process will include a written submission of no more than 1500 words – remember, it was 7,000 last time – with applicants submitting a brief summary of their ITT and mentor curricula. In this short piece they will need to “demonstrate how their curriculum meets the quality requirements in the ITT criteria.” A window across March and April 2025 was open to complete and upload this portfolio.

    Stage 2, this time round, is an interview, where applicants “deliver a presentation to a panel, and answer questions further demonstrating how they meet the quality requirement.” Following both the written and verbal submissions, an assessment will be made and moderated by panels of ITT experts.

    For those still haunted by the lived experience of the first round of ITT accreditation, the greatly reduced stringency of the process would appear to make a mockery of the previous, highly controversial, demands and expectations.

    Like last time, success in the accreditation will require a demonstration of compliance with the expectations of the core curriculum framework (or from September, the ITTECF) along with further DfE quality requirements through submission.

    However, unlike last time, prospective providers will not be required to create extensive written responses, detailed curriculum resources or an extensive mentor curriculum (for which many of the requirements were axed overnight in the government’s announcement in November).

    Unbalanced

    How can the two contrasting timelines and expectations possibly be seen as equitable or comparable?

    In addition, how can we guarantee a smooth transition between lead partners and current accredited providers? Some of these partnerships involve undergraduate provision, established as a result of “rationalising” ITT provision. For those students only in year one of a three-year degree, how will this transition work?

    As a sector we recognise that the policy is aimed at meeting the government target of recruiting an extra 6,500 teachers this sitting parliament. And we welcome our peers back into the fold. Many of us are still reeling from the injustice of those colleagues being locked out in the last round (at the time all rated good or better by Ofsted).

    However, as NFER’s recent teacher labour market report pointed out, teachers’ pay and workload remain the highest cited reasons for ongoing difficulties in recruitment and retention. Neither of these things have been addressed by the new accreditation process.

    For those of us still clinging on for dear life, our confidence in the system is fading. One day, just like our stamina and resilience, it will evaporate all together.

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  • What the latest HESA data tells us about university finances

    What the latest HESA data tells us about university finances

    The headlines from the 2023-24 annual financial returns were already pretty well known back in January.

    Even if you didn’t see Wonkhe’s analysis at the time (or the very similar Telegraph analysis in early May), you’d have been well aware that things have not been looking great for the UK’s universities and other higher education providers for a while now, and that a disquieting number of these are running deficits and/or making swingeing cuts.

    What the release of the full HESA Finance open data allows us to do is to peer even deeper into what was going on last academic year, and start making sense of the way in which providers are responding to these ongoing and worsening pressures. In particular, I want to focus in on expenditure in this analysis – it has become more expensive to do just about everything in higher education, and although the point around the inadequacy of fee and research income has been well and frequently made there has been less focus on just how much more money it costs to do anything.

    Not all universities

    The analysis is necessarily incomplete. The May release deals with providers who have a conventional (for higher education) financial year – one that matches the traditional academic year and runs through to the end of August. As the sector has become more diverse the variety of financial years in operation have grown. Traditional large universities have stayed with the status quo – but the variation means that we can’t talk about the entire sector in the same way as we used to, and you should bear this in mind when looking at aggregate 2023-24 data.

    A large number of providers did not manage to make a submission on time. Delays in getting auditor sign off (either because there was an audit capacity problem due to large numbers of local authorities having complex financial problems, or because universities themselves were having said complex financial problems) mean that we are down 18 sets of accounts. A glance down the list shows a few names known to be struggling (including one that has closed and one that has very publicly received a state bailout).

    So full data for the Dartington Hall Trust, PHBS-UK, Coventry University, Leeds Trinity University, Middlesex University, Spurgeon’s College, the University of West London, The University of Kent, University of Sussex, the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, The Salvation Army, The London School of Jewish Studies, Plymouth Marjon University, the British Academy of Jewellery Limited, Multiverse Group Limited, the London School of Architecture, The Engineering and Design Institute London (TEDI) and the University of Dundee will be following some time in autumn 2025.

    Bad and basic

    HESA’s Key Financial Indicators (KFIs) are familiar and well-documented, and would usually be the first place you would go to get a sense of the overall financial health of a particular university.

    I’m a fan of net liquidity days (a measure showing the number of days a university could run for in the absence of any further income). Anything below a month (31 days) makes me sit up and take notice – when you exclude the pension adjustment (basically money that a university never had and would never need to find – it’s an actuarial nicety linked to to the unique way USS is configured) there’s 10 large-ish universities in that boat including some fairly well known names.

    [Full screen]

    Just choose your indicator of interest in the KFI box and mouse over a mark in the chart to see a time series for the provider of your choice. You can find a provider using the highlighter – and if you want to look at an earlier year on the top chart there’s a filter to let you do that. I’ve filtered out some smaller providers by default as the KFIs are less applicable there, but you can add them back in using the “group” filter.

    I’d also recommend a look at external borrowing as a percentage of total (annual) income – there are some providers in the sector that are very highly leveraged who would both struggle to borrow additional funds at a reasonable rate and are likely to have substantial repayments and stringent covenants that severely constrain the strategic choices they can make.

    Balance board

    This next chart lets you see the fundamentals of your university’s balance sheet – with a ranking by overall surplus and deficit at the top. There are 29 largeish providers who reported a deficit (excluding the pension adjustments again) in 2023-24, with the majority being the kind of smaller modern providers that train large parts of our public sector workforce. These are the kind of universities who are unlikely to have substantial initial income beyond tuition fees, but will still have a significant cost base to sustain (usually staffing costs and the wider estates and overheads that make the university work).

    [Full screen]

    This one works in a pretty similar way to the chart above – mousing over a provider mark on the main surplus/deficit ranking lets you see a simplified balance sheet. The colours show the headline categories, but these are split into more useful indications of what income or expenditure relates to. Again, by default and for ease of reading I have filtered out smaller providers but you could add them in using the “group” filter. For definitions of the terms used HESA has a very useful set of notes below table 1 (from which this visualisation is derived)

    There’s very little discretionary spend within the year – everything pretty much relates to actually paying staff, actually staying in regulatory compliance, and actually keeping the lights on and the campus standing: all things with a direct link to the student experience. For this reason, universities have in the past been more keen to maximise income than bear down on costs although the severity and scope of the current pressure means that cuts that students will notice are becoming a lot more common.

    What universities spend money on

    As a rule of thumb, about half of university expenditure is on staff costs (salaries, pensions, overheads). These costs rise slowly but relatively predictably over time, which is why the increase in National Insurance contributions (which we will see reflected in next year’s accounts) came as such an unwelcome surprise.

    But the real pressure so far has been on the non-staff non-finance costs – which have risen from below 40 per cent a decade ago to rapidly approach 50 per cent this year (note that these figures are not directly comparable, but the year to date includes most larger providers, and the addition of the smaller providers in the regular totals for other years will not change things much).

    What are “other costs”? Put all thoughts of shiny new buildings from your mind (as we will see these are paid for with capital, and only show up in recurrent budgets as finance costs) – once again, we are talking about the niceties of there being power, sewage, wifi, printer paper, and properly maintained buildings and equipment. The combination of inflationary increases and a rise in the cost of raw materials and logistics as a result of the absolute state of the world right now.

    [Full screen]

    Though this first chart defaults to overall expenditure you can use it to drill down as far as individual academic cost centres using the “cc group” and “cc filters”. Select your provider of interest (“All providers” shows the entire sector up to 2022-23, “All providers (year to date)” shows everything we know about for 2023-24. It’s worth being aware that these are original not restated accounts so there may be some minor discrepancies with the balance sheets (which are based on restated numbers).

    The other thing we can learn from table 8 is how university spending is and has been split proportionally between cost centres. Among academic subject areas, one big story has been the rise in spending in business and management – these don’t map cleanly to departments on the ground, but the intention to ready your business school for the hoped-for boom in MBA provision is very apparent.

    [Full screen]

    That’s capital

    I promised I’d get back to new builds (and large refurbishment/maintenance projects) and here we are. Spending is categorised as capital expenditure when it contributes to the development of an asset that will realise value over multiple financial years. In the world of universities spend is generally either on buildings (the estate more generally) or equipment (all the fancy kit you need to do teaching and research).

    What’s interesting about the HESA data here is that we can learn a lot about the source of this capital – it’s fairly clear for instance that the big boom in borrowing when OfS deregulated everything in 2019-20 has long since passed. “Other external sources” (which includes things like donations and bequests) are playing an increasingly big part in some university capital programmes, but the main source remains “internal funds” drawn from surpluses realised in the recurrent budget. These now constitute more than 60 per cent of all capital spend – by contrast external borrowing is less than ten per cent (a record low in the OfS era)

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    What’s next?

    As my colleague Debbie McVitty has already outlined on the site, the Office for Students chose the same day to publish their own analysis of this crop of financial statements plus an interim update giving a clearer picture of the current year alongside projections for the next few.

    Rather than sharing any real attempt to understand what is going on around the campuses of England, the OfS generally uses these occasions to complain that actors within a complex and competitive market are unable to spontaneously generate a plausible aggregate recruitment prediction. It’s almost as if everyone believes that the expansion plans they have very carefully made using the best available data and committed money to will actually work.

    The pattern with these tends to be that next year (the one people know most about) will be terrible, but future years will gradually improve as awesome plans (see above) start to pay off. And this iteration, even with the extra in year data which contributes to a particularly bad 2025-26 picture, is no exception to this.

    While the HESA data allows for an analysis of individual provider circumstances, the release from OfS covers large groups of providers – mixing in both successful and struggling versions of a “large research intensive” or “medium” provider in a generally unhelpful way.

    [Full screen]

    To be clear, the regulator understands that different providers (though outwardly similar) may have different financial pressures. It just doesn’t want to talk in public about which problems are where, and how it intends to help.

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  • Education research takes another hit in latest DOGE attack

    Education research takes another hit in latest DOGE attack

    Education research has a big target on its back.

    Of the more than 1,000 National Science Foundation grants killed last month by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, some 40 percent were inside its education division. These grants to further STEM education research accounted for a little more than half of the $616 million NSF committed for projects canceled by DOGE, according to Dan Garisto, a freelance journalist reporting for Nature, a peer-reviewed scientific journal that also covers science news.

    The STEM education division gives grants to researchers at universities and other organizations who study how to improve the teaching of math and science, with the goal of expanding the number of future scientists who will fuel the U.S. economy. Many of the studies are focused on boosting the participation of women or Black and Hispanic students. The division had a roughly $1.2 billion budget out of NSF’s total annual budget of $9 billion. 

    Related: Our free weekly newsletter alerts you to what research says about schools and classrooms.

    Neither the NSF nor the Trump administration has provided a list of the canceled grants. Garisto told me that he obtained a list from an informal group of NSF employees who cobbled it together themselves. That list was subsequently posted on Grant Watch, a new project to track the Trump administration’s termination of grants at scientific research agencies. Garisto has been working with outside researchers at Grant Watch and elsewhere to document the research dollars that are affected and analyze the list for patterns. 

    “For NSF, we see that the STEM education directorate has been absolutely pummeled,” Noam Ross, a computational disease ecologist and one of the Grant Watch researchers, posted on Bluesky. 

    Terminated grants fall heavily upon STEM Education 

    Graphic by Dan Garisto, a freelance journalist working for Nature

    The steep cuts to NSF education research follow massive blows in February and March at the Department of Education, where almost 90 research and data collection projects were canceled along with the elimination of Regional Education Laboratories and the firing of almost 90 percent of the employees in the research and data division, known as the Institute of Education Sciences.

    Many, but not all, of the canceled research projects at NSF were also in a database of 3,400 research grants compiled by Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican. Cruz characterized them as “questionable projects that promoted Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) or advanced neo-Marxist class warfare propaganda.”  

    Ross at Grant Watch analyzed the titles and abstracts or summaries of the terminated projects and discovered that “Black” was the most frequent word among them. Other common words were “climate,” “student,” “network,” “justice,” “identity,” “teacher,” and “undergraduate.”

    Frequent words in the titles and summaries of terminated NSF research projects

    Word cloud of the most frequent terms from the titles and abstracts of terminated grants, with word size proportional to frequency. Purple is the most frequent, followed by orange and green. Source: Noam Ross, Grant Watch

    At least two of the terminated research studies focused on improving artificial intelligence education, which President Donald Trump promised to promote in an April 23 executive order,“Advancing Artificial Intelligence Education for American Youth.” 

    “There is something especially offensive about this EO from April 23 about the need for AI education… Given the termination of my grant on exactly this topic on April 26,” said Danaé Metaxa in a post on Bluesky that has since been deleted. Metaxa, an assistant professor of computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania, was developing a curriculum on how to teach AI digital literacy skills by having students build and audit generative AI models. 

    Related: Chaos and confusion as the statistics arm of the Education Department is reduced to a skeletal staff of 3

    Another canceled grant involved college students creating educational content about AI for social media to see if that content would improve AI literacy and the ability to detect misinformation. The lead researcher, Casey Fiesler, an associate professor of information science at the University of Colorado Boulder, was almost midway through her two-year grant of less than $270,000. “There is not a DEI aspect of this work,” said Fiesler. “My best guess is that the reason it was flagged was the word ‘misinformation.’”

    Confusion surrounded the cuts. Bob Russell, a former NSF project officer who retired in 2024, said some NSF project officers were initially unaware that the grants they oversee had been canceled. Instead, university officials who oversee research were told, and those officials notified researchers at their institutions. Researchers then contacted their project officers. One researcher told me that the termination notice states that researchers may not appeal the decision, an administrative process that is ordinarily available to researchers who feel that NSF has made an unfair or incorrect decision. 

    Related: DOGE’s death blow to education studies

    Some of the affected researchers were attending the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in Denver on April 26 when more than 600 grants were cut. Some scholars found out by text that their studies had been terminated. Normally festive evening receptions were grim. “It was like a wake,” said one researcher. 

    The Trump administration wants to slash NSF’s budget and headcount in half, according to Russell. Many researchers expect more cuts ahead.

    Contact staff writer Jill Barshay at 212-678-3595, jillbarshay.35 on Signal, or barshay@hechingerreport.org.

    This story about NSF education research cuts was written by Jill Barshay and produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Proof Points and other Hechinger newsletters.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

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  • Latest from Belong – students’ health is not OK, and that’s not OK

    Latest from Belong – students’ health is not OK, and that’s not OK

    It’s hard to learn if you’re ill – good health is one of the classic prerequisites to learning.

    But one of the most frustrating things about the debate around student health in the UK is that there isn’t one.

    Anecdotally, poor access to preventative healthcare and health services tends to be justified either by NHS pressure from an ageing population or by expectations that universities should do more with less.

    Both arguments have merit, but they leave the crucial link between health and academic success stuck in that Spiderman meme, while the public and the press blames students for “boozing it up” or “inventing ADHD.”

    Mental health is well, almost over-researched – but health concerns for students go far beyond the usual talking points. Gonorrhoea diagnoses are at record levels, with the UK Health Security Agency identifying students as a key factor, drugs are the subject of many a survey, disordered eating among students is largely ignored, and sleep deprivation seems to be an issue. Some surveys say dental issues are increasingly common – as one expert notes, “dental health is mental health.”

    The question is whether any of these issues are unique to students – and to the extent to which they are, what sorts of policy interventions might address them.

    In the latest wave of Belong, our polling partnership with Cibyl (which our subscriber SUs can take part in for free), we examined everything from general health perceptions and healthcare access to specific areas like sleep quality, alcohol consumption, sexual health confidence, and experiences with the NHS.

    The results come from our early 2025 wave, with responses from 1,055 students across 88 providers. The data has been weighted for gender and qualification type (undergraduate, postgraduate taught, and postgraduate research) to ensure representativeness. There’s also analysis of various free-text questions to illustrate what’s going underneath the headline results.

    Yeah, I’m OK

    First of all, we asked students a standard question used in national surveys asking them to rate their own health. Only 20 per cent of students rate their health as “very good” compared to 48 per cent of the general population.

    Combined figures show that while 61 per cent of students report “good” or “very good” health (compared to 82 per cent in the general population), a full 32 per cent describe their health as merely “fair” – nearly two and a half times the rate in the general population.

    Qualitative comments illuminate what lies beneath. Many students clearly differentiate between their physical and mental wellbeing:

    My physical health is generally good, whereas I have faced some struggles in mental health (which can also at times impact my physical health).

    Physical is usually good but sometimes a little bit hungry after trying to save some food for other days. Mentally I am ok but I don’t fill very fulfilled.

    My physical health is immaculate however my mental health is the worst it’s ever been.

    Several respondents directly connected their health status to the pressures of university life:

    Could be better, I’m finding learning incredibly stressful as part of a full-time job.

    Almost died from an overdose of caffeine trying to work on a essay and had two breakdowns.

    Feel very tired due to uni, aware my health could be better, but do not have the time.

    For others, university has provided structure and support:

    Being at uni has helped me focus more on my self care and mental health to improve

    My health is generally good because I prioritise self-care, balance my studies, part-time work, and rest, and use available support when needed.

    Many respondents described their health as variable and requiring ongoing management:

    I am physically keeping fit, mental health I am working on, some days are better than others.

    My everyday health is a constant battle that I have to take a multitude of medications. I have good days and bad days and am lucky if I get a decent amount of sleep.

    Everyone gets their bad days and good.

    A significant number of students also reported living with chronic physical health conditions or disabilities:

    I’m disabled. I always feel bad.

    I am a full time wheelchair user with ME and fibromyalgia, so I am in a lot of pain and fatigue.

    I had a diagnosis of a rare cancer called Leiomyosarcoma in 2023. The cancer has gone but it’s left me with a whole range of health problems.

    Overall, the narrative accounts reveal complexity – where mental and physical wellbeing are often experienced differently, academic pressures can both harm and support health, daily fluctuations in health status are common, and chronic conditions create persistent challenges that require constant navigation of university life.

    Correlations or causations?

    We wanted to know if there are relationships between health and key elements of student experience. The data shows strong correlations between student health perceptions and their sense of belonging – among students reporting “very good” or “good” health, 85 per cent feel part of a community, compared to just 68 per cent among those reporting “bad” or “very bad” health:

    This pattern extends to whether students feel free to speak – 93 per cent of those with better health feel free to express themselves, compared to only 77 per cent of those reporting poorer health conditions:

    On teaching quality, 91 per cent of students with “very good” or “good” health report positive teaching quality, while 84 per cent of students with “fair,” “bad,” or “very bad” health still rate teaching quality positively:

    Correlation is not causation – though it’s technically possible that poor teaching or poor belonging is making students ill, to the extent that the free text offers clues, it suggests that the causation is the other way around – poor health appears to be robbing students of the ability to take advantage of the academic and social opportunities on offer.

    Are you registered?

    The good news in our polling is that most students (93 per cent) are registered with a GP. The problem is that only 65 per cent are registered near their place of study. A quarter (25 per cent) remain registered elsewhere in the UK, while five per cent maintain registration in another country:

    The qualitative comments reveal several distinct reasons for not registering locally. Many students commute to university and maintain their home GP registration:

    Because I don’t live at uni. I commute. So it would make sense to have my GP in my home town

    As I do not live on campus, it is easier for me to stay registered with my GP, who is closer to home.

    Even students who do live at university often cite proximity to home as a reason not to change registration:

    It’s only an hour to my home town so easier just to stick with them.

    Don’t feel I live far enough away from home to register with another GP.

    Continuity of care emerges as another significant concern:

    If I sign up for a local GP here, I would be de-registered from my home GP. Since I prefer to stay with my home GP for continuity of care and I only need healthcare support when I’m at home, I haven’t registered with a GP at uni.

    Because I am waiting for talking therapies which I can only get if I am registered with a GP in Somerset so registering in Plymouth will take me off of the waiting list.

    I have been on a waiting list for migraine treatments in my home town and don’t want to start again and wait even longer.

    Home GP knows about my disabilities and there back history.

    And some students express concerns about quality of care:

    They are useless.

    I’ve heard some horror stories about the GP here, and when my friend was too sick to eat or sleep, they wouldn’t even talk to her.

    Dental registration shows a more concerning pattern, with a third of students (33 per cent) reporting they are not registered with a dentist at all. Only 17 per cent are registered near their place of study, while 31 per cent maintain registration elsewhere in the UK and 12 per cent in another country:

    Despite the low registration rate, 56 per cent report having had a dental check-up in the past 12 months – almost identical to rates found in the general population, although that’s hardly a corks-popping moment for the country.

    Students cite NHS availability and cost as major barriers:

    There is no NHS dentist available in the county!

    There are no dentist mine is private.

    NHS is underfunded so it’s impossible to access these services. Private dentists are unaffordable.

    It is literally cheaper for me to travel to my country for a dentist appointment where there is healthcare than doing it here.

    Many students also note that dental appointments can be scheduled during visits home:

    Dental care is something that is tended to like every 6 months or so. So it makes sense to just keep the appointments whenever I am back home.

    Only visit once every 6 months so can plan to go home when the appointment is approaching.

    As with GP services, commuting students typically maintain their home dentist:

    I commute rather than live on campus, so it was more convenient to stay with my dentist closer to where I live.

    Loyalty to existing dentists also emerged as a significant factor:

    I’m with an NHS dentist at home and I don’t want to lose my NHS dentist by moving to a different one as it’s difficult to find NHS dentists.

    I go home enough to see my home dentist who has known me for 20 years.

    Can’t get no

    In early April, the long-running British Social Attitudes survey told us that public satisfaction with the NHS had hit a new low – just 21 per cent said they were satisfied with the NHS in 2024, with waiting times and staff shortages the biggest concerns.

    So we wanted to know what students think. In our polling nearly half (49 per cent) reported being either “very dissatisfied” (12 per cent) or “quite dissatisfied” (37 per cent) with the NHS. In contrast, only 31 per cent expressed satisfaction, with a mere three per cent indicating they are “very satisfied”:

    Many respondents expressed frustration with the difficulty of getting appointments and lengthy waiting times:

    12 hours wait time at A&E is scandalous, people die waiting for ambulances, good luck getting an appointment.

    It takes too long to get anything sorted.

    I have waited long periods to have health checks and it has taken months to get in to see anyone.

    Can’t seem to get a same day appointment.

    A significant number attributed NHS problems to systemic underfunding:

    It is underfunded, there is too much stress on all the services so they can’t take care of patients properly.

    It’s massively underfunded and unsupported by the government. The Tories ripped it to shreds.

    As an international student I pay £776 for this shit shower, joke of a country really is.

    It isn’t the fault of the nurses, doctors hospital staff etc. It’s that the NHS is criminally underfunded.

    Many highlighted specific concerns about mental health services:

    You have to be attempting to kill yourself for the NHS to help you with mental health problems.

    I’m diagnosed with anxiety and it’s been the worst mistake of my life I wish I just kept it between me and my therapist they don’t listen to a word I say.

    The NHS cannot take the strain of the sheer number of mentally ill young people.

    Mental health services and waiting times just to have initial appointments are terrible.

    Respondents also expressed frustration with a lack of communication between different parts of the system:

    Nobody talks to each other and waiting lists are long.

    Lack of communication between hospitals, staff members within the same hospital.

    Less continuity of staff – like you’re on a conveyor belt passed along looking at the surface issue – not the deeper.

    Long waiting times and lack of communication between various departments. Over complicated administration processes.

    And some had specific concerns about the quality of care they received:

    When I went to an emergency dentist in the UK, they left something in my tooth that rotted and I had to have the tooth removed.

    I’ve been to 4 different hospitals about my knee which keeps dislocating and popping. They don’t care to be honest.

    A male consultant kept refusing to answer my questions before a medical procedure and complained when I refused to let him touch me.

    I feel like I treat myself rather than being treated.

    Drugs, alcohol and food

    Plenty of press stories surround the idea that Gen Z is more likely to be clean living and teetotal than previous generations. Our polling suggests that 26 per cent of students never consume alcohol – a slightly higher abstention rate than the general adult population, where according to the latest NHS data 19 per cent report not drinking in the past year.

    For those who do drink, consumption patterns are distributed across different frequencies:

    This pattern suggests lower regular drinking among students compared to the general adult population, where 48 per cent report drinking at least once a week. When students do drink, most report moderate consumption (the below graph only includes those who indicated they drink):

    It’s worth noting that 7 per cent of respondents chose not to answer the question about quantity consumed, which may indicate some hesitancy to report higher levels of consumption.

    We also asked about drugs – specifically asking students about illegal drugs or prescription drug misuse within the past month. The results show that a small minority of students (seven per cent) reported using illegal drugs or misusing prescription medications in the past month, a rate much lower than is often perceived.

    Back in 2023 we also carried out polling on disordered eating amongst students, having spotted some pilot polling that the ONS did on the issue the previous year. Little has changed.

    In the ONS work, our 2023 poll and this wave, we used the SCOFF questionnaire – a validated screening tool for detecting potential eating disorders – to assess students’ relationships with food and body image. The results show concerning patterns:

    • Nine per cent reported making themselves sick because they felt uncomfortably full
    • 26 per cent worried they had lost control over how much they eat
    • Eight per cent reported significant weight loss in a three-month period
    • 19 per cent believed themselves to be fat when others said they were thin
    • 19 per cent reported that food dominates their life

    When these responses are analysed according to SCOFF scoring criteria:

    • 49 per cent showed no sign of possible issues (compared to 50 per cent in the ONS national sample)
    • 25 per cent demonstrated possible issues with food or body image (compared to 23 per cent in ONS)
    • 24 per cent showed possible eating disorder patterns (compared to 27 per cent in ONS)

    The findings suggest that the UK student population closely mirrors national trends in disordered eating and problematic relationships with food and body image. The particularly high percentage of students who worry about losing control over eating (26 per cent) and who perceive themselves as fat when others say they’re thin (19 per cent) – and the relationship we found between those issues and mental health in 2023 – suggest significant work to yet be done, that could have very positive impacts.

    No snooze, you lose

    Sleep and rest is a huge part of health. Our results show a mixed picture over quality and quantity. While 47 per cent of students report “very good” (10 per cent) or “fairly good” (37 per cent) sleep quality, nearly a quarter (24 per cent) describe their sleep as “fairly poor” (15 per cent) or “very poor” (nine per cent). More than a quarter (28 per cent) fall into the middle category of “neither good nor poor.”

    When it comes to sleep duration, half of students (50 per cent) report getting six to seven hours of sleep per night on average, with an additional 26 per cent getting eight to nine hours. However, a concerning 21 per cent are sleeping fewer than six hours per night, with 20 per cent getting just four to five hours and one per cent less than four hours.

    The findings show a potential improvement compared to the polling we carried out a year ago, which found students were getting just 5.4 hours of sleep per night on average. Our current data suggests a higher proportion of students are now achieving six-plus hours of sleep – but it’s still not nearly enough.

    The 2024 exercise saw strong relationships between sleep duration and both life satisfaction and anxiety levels. Students getting 8-8.9 hours of sleep reported significantly higher life satisfaction scores (6.9 versus the average of 6.3) and lower anxiety scores (4.7 versus the average of 5.0) compared to those sleeping less.

    Students in that survey clearly recognised the importance of sleep:

    I need more sleep!

    Could probably do with more sleep, just trying to get 8 hours a week would be nice.

    But the qualitative data highlighted several factors affecting student sleep patterns:

    • Academic pressures: “Currently, the workload is too big.”
    • Employment demands: “Being in my overdraft monthly, long hours at work cuts into my sleep time.”
    • Irregular timetables: “What would help? A more consistent timetable.”

    Housing a problem

    Governments love their public policy silos – but one of the things SUs wanted us to look at was the relationship between housing and health. In this data, nearly half of respondents (49 per cent) reported that housing does affect their health – with 27 per cent noting a positive impact and 22 per cent experiencing negative effects:

    Many students reported health concerns related to poor physical conditions in their accommodation:

    Student houses have mold and have usually been untouched from when they were bought 12 years prior. My house has plenty of mold which no doubt hasn’t helped things when I have been unwell.

    I live in a very mouldy flat that I have to spray at least once a fortnight to tackle the mould. It is damp and mouldy, but the landlord just tells me to open a window.

    My window doesn’t open and was reported to reception before I even arrived in September I have gone back to report it to them multiple times and they still haven’t done anything about it. I also do not have an extractor fan which works in my bathroom this means I have no airflow in my room.

    Housing affordability emerged as a significant stressor affecting mental health:

    Every year when my rent is rised it impacts my mental and physical health hugely as it causes me a lot of stress and forces me to cut things that make me feel better.

    It’s Cornwall so the housing situation is abysmal… Landlords and estate agents take advantage of this to a disgusting degree and overcharge students to the point of spending all or the vast majority of your student loan just on rent.

    After rent I have no money. Landlords know how much student loans we get and scalp accordingly.

    The social environment created by housemates significantly influences mental wellbeing, with both positive and negative experiences reported:

    My flatmates are incredibly unclean and disrespectful.

    My housemates are rude and disrespect and leave a mess everywhere and they smoke weed despite me asking them to stop loads. It makes me not want to be at home.

    Although on the positive side:

    My housemates are lovely people to talk to and I get along with them really well.

    I love my housemates, we cook and eat dinner together every day and it’s nice to just hang out.

    Insecurity about housing arrangements creates significant stress:

    I rent privately, so the expensive rent combined with low-quality housing and anxiety around the permanence of my home significantly affect my anxiety.

    I recently had my housing group fall apart and will need to give my ESA up to a friend of my partner in Essex due to inability to find student housing that will allow me to keep her.

    Landlord left us with no heating or hot water for 2 months.

    And some students reported significant benefits from supportive housing environments:

    It has been beneficial moving out of a toxic home environment. I have become very close with a few of my flatmates here.

    I recently got my own place after being in a house where I was abused. It’s more difficult financially but at least I don’t have someone else hurting me on purpose.

    I have found moving to a house away from campus with people I am close with has had a positive effect due to the home/uni balance I now have.

    It’s another classic silo issue. The failure of any of the four governments to cobble up a student housing policy is a housing issue – but it’s also an educational issue and a health issue. And because it’s a student issue, it ends up being an issue that is not handled or planned as an issue by anyone. And so it just gets worse every year.

    Not so free periods

    We were also asked to look at menstruation and sexual health. On the former, the results suggest that most respondents find menstrual products reasonably accessible – save for an important minority:

    When asked whether menstruation impacts their daily life, respondents were fairly evenly split:

    The relatively even division suggests that menstruation-related challenges continue to affect a significant proportion of the student population, potentially influencing their academic performance, social engagement, and overall university experience.

    Then on sexual confidence and health, the results show generally high levels of self-reported confidence:

    The standout is that approximately 18 per cent lack confidence in accessing NHS sexual health services – the highest area of uncertainty among those surveyed.

    The findings present an interesting contrast to a 2021 HEPI survey on sex and sexual health among students. That research found significant variations in consent understanding and confidence levels, particularly when examining school background and gender.

    In that work, privately educated males were a key issue:

    • Only 37 per cent felt “very confident” in understanding what constitutes sexual consent (compared to 59 per cent of students overall)
    • Only 34 per cent were “very confident” in how to communicate sexual consent clearly (versus 47 per cent overall)
    • Only 41 per cent were “very confident” in how not to pressure others for sex (versus 61 per cent overall)

    Our polling in this wave doesn’t have a large enough sample to offer similar demographic breakdowns, but the overall high confidence levels suggest either an improvement in students’ understanding since 2021 or – importantly – potential overconfidence in self-assessment.

    For better or worse

    Finally, we wanted to know whether students’ health had changed since coming to university. While 39 per cent reported their health has improved (with three per cent saying “much better” and 36 per cent “better”), 27 per cent indicated their health had worsened (23 per cent “worse” and four per cent “much worse”) – and a significant proportion (34 per cent) chose not to respond to this question.

    Many students reported deteriorating mental health since beginning their studies:

    Mental health has declined and physical health/pain got worse as well.

    Academic pressure has made me feel depressed.

    My mental health is no better and I have panic attacks at least two times a week.

    Anxiety levels are higher, I feel socially overwhelmed after a day at uni.

    Financial pressures emerge as a significant factor negatively impacting both physical and mental wellbeing:

    I can’t afford a lot of things. I struggle to buy food period products, and other healthcare. I’m inclined to work when I’m sick because I need to cover tuition and rent.

    I can’t afford basic nutrition.

    Many students reported having less time or opportunity for physical activity:

    Too tired to workout/run most days.

    I feel I have less time to exercise. I spend more time on a computer which affects my hands and back.

    I was much more physically active before starting university.

    Changes in eating habits were commonly mentioned as negatively affecting health:

    My diet is a lot worse, and I tend to be generally less healthy.

    I put on a lot of weight due to staying in my room all day and not having enough money to afford a good diet.

    As I am now living alone, so my eating issues have become worse as I am the one to control what I eat – so I will eat nothing for a month, and then gain all the weight back by giving up and binging.

    It’s not all bad news. For those in the “improved” camp, increased physical activity (“I’ve been going to the gym since first year and have really enjoyed doing so”), better nutrition habits (“I have more control and time over my diet”), improved mental wellbeing (“Well at collage I was suicidal but at uni I don’t really have that inkling anymore”), greater autonomy over health choices (“Being more independent and in control of my life has done wonders for my physical and mental health”), and beneficial routines (“The routine has enabled me to keep in touch with my health a lot better”) were all key themes.

    The positive experiences suggest that for a significant proportion of students, university can provide both the freedom and structure to develop healthier lifestyles and improved wellbeing.

    If it was up to me

    When, at the end of the survey, we asked students what they would change about health services if it was up to them, they offered a wealth of practical suggestions.

    Mental health services emerged as a top priority, with clear calls for “more therapy sessions,” “expanded mental health services,” and “shorter waiting times or support whilst on waiting lists.” Many emphasised the need for greater coordination: “Less pressure to do so well academically. Student union need to put more pressure on the uni to allocate funds towards mental health services.”

    Financial barriers to health featured prominently in student concerns. Suggestions included “lowering the cost of the university gym,” “free prescriptions till you finish uni,” and broader recommendations to “improve student finance so that students can afford to eat healthily.”

    Improving access to NHS services was another key theme, with students recommending “a GP on campus perhaps or someone you can talk to before having to go to the GP” and “easier GP registration, shorter wait times for appointments.” Some highlighted specific needs for marginalised groups: “Fast tracking marginalised students who are already forced through forms and waiting list just to access their healthcare.”

    Sexual and reproductive health resources were frequently mentioned, with calls for “free condoms across campus,” “free period products,” and “more information about sexual health/like events centred around that, including sexual health for trans people and using inclusive language.”

    Many also stressed the need for better information and outreach, suggesting “having a known place to access in a casual manner,” “health advice given in more accessible areas,” and “making clear where and how to access it with a focus on helping international students navigate a new system.”

    And several comments addressed broader cultural and systemic issues: “Stop encouraging mid-week drinking, university alcoholism culture is insane”, “More conversations about loneliness, it’s weirdly normalised at uni” and “Address systemic bias in medicine, especially impacting women.”

    An agenda for change

    There are bits of good news – but the big picture that emerges from our findings is stark and troubling. 20 per cent of students reporting “very good” health compared to 48 per cent in the general population is a disparity that would prompt immediate intervention in any other population group. But that problematic place in the policy Venn that students are in – both largely young and belonging to DfE, not DHSC – leaves them ignored. This student offers a damning indictment of a system where basic physiological needs compete with academic demands:

    I literally went to university at the wrong time with how much it currently costs. It’s impossible to concentrate on my studies without the constant fear of how am I going to eat tonight.

    Another speaks of “black mould and damp” while their landlord’s sage advice is to “open a window.” Is this really the backdrop against which we expect student success to happen?

    The data reveals a healthcare system fundamentally misaligned with student life realities. Only 65 per cent are registered with a GP where they study, just 17 per cent with a local dentist. And why should they bother? With 49 per cent expressing dissatisfaction with NHS services – “12 hours wait time at A&E is scandalous, people die waiting for ambulances, good luck getting an appointment” – the friction in accessing care hardly seems worth the effort. That we ask international students to pay for it is even more scandalous.

    The answers lie partly in our addiction to departmental silos and short-term thinking. No Westminster department champions students as a distinct population with specific health needs deserving of targeted interventions. Universities focus on student retention while the NHS prioritises acute care – and students fall through the gap between.

    The South African model of mandatory health modules covering mental, physical and sexual wellbeing offers an interesting approach – yet here we continue treating student health as an afterthought rather than a core educational function, something else that used to be developed in the gap between lectures that’s now filled with the demands of long commutes and punishing part-time work.

    What might a solution look like? Perhaps it starts with recognising that today’s “horizontal generation” won’t respond to top-down health messaging. Their peer networks and digital platforms represent not just challenges but opportunities for intervention. Digital solutions that personalise support, peer-to-peer health models, and practical education around cooking and nutrition align with how today’s students actually engage with information. But there’s another critical factor – our lack of comprehensive national data on student health.

    The current patchwork of institution-specific surveys and occasional national sampling is simply inadequate. How can we design effective interventions without a robust, longitudinal understanding of student health patterns? A dedicated national student health and wellbeing survey – tracking mental health, food insecurity, nutrition, sleep patterns, and their impact on academic outcomes – isn’t a luxury, it’s a fundamental prerequisite for evidence-based policy. Surely the NSS could take a year off every few years?

    Then when it comes to delivery, the answer won’t be found in Whitehall but in our regions and cities. Manchester’s integrated approach to student mental health – where university health services, local NHS trusts, and city council public health teams collaborate on shared priorities – demonstrates what’s possible when student health is approached as a citywide asset rather than an institutional burden. It should both be broadened beyond mental health, and replicated.

    And whatever is done really needs to be underpinned by rights – encompassing dual GP registration, affordable healthcare, timely disability diagnosis, health-supporting university policies, and integrated NHS partnerships.

    The alternative is to continue watching talented students struggle unnecessarily, their potential diminished by preventable health challenges. A student eating so poorly they “can’t afford basic nutrition” or sleeping in accommodation where “mould grew on my campus room’s walls before I even came in” isn’t just experiencing personal discomfort, they’re living the consequences of policy failure – and paying for it, in more ways than one.

    You can download the full deck of our findings from this Belong tranche on student health here.

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  • Trump’s Latest Executive Orders Target Accreditation

    Trump’s Latest Executive Orders Target Accreditation

    President Donald Trump took aim at college accreditors in an executive order signed Wednesday that targets two accrediting agencies for investigation and suggests others could lose federal recognition altogether.

    The order was one of seven issued Wednesday as Trump nears the end of his first 100 days. Others directed the Education Department to enforce the law requiring colleges to disclose some foreign gifts and contracts, aimed to support historically Black colleges and universities, and outlined several policy changes for K-12 schools. With the accreditation order and the others, Trump and White House officials argued they were refocusing the education system on meritocracy.

    Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who was in the Oval Office for the signing, opened her follow-up statement by praising the accreditation order and saying it would “bring long-overdue change” and “create a competitive marketplace.”

    “America’s higher education accreditation system is broken,” she wrote. “Instead of pushing schools to adopt a divisive DEI ideology, accreditors should be focused on helping schools improve graduation rates and graduates’ performance in the labor market.”

    Some of the immediate public reactions from higher ed groups criticized the accreditation order, describing it as yet another attempt to put more power in the hands of the president and threaten academic freedom.

    The Council of Higher Education Accreditation said Trump’s directive would “affect the value and independence of accreditation,” while the American Association of University Professors said it would “remov[e] educational decision making from educators and reshap[e] higher education to fit an authoritarian political agenda.”

    Overhauling Accreditation

    Rumored for weeks, the accreditation order was perhaps the most anticipated one of those signed Wednesday, and it will likely have widespread ramifications as Trump seeks to scrutinize and reform the system.

    Historically, accreditors have operated under the radar with little public attention, but in recent years conservatives have focused on the agencies and their role in holding colleges accountable. (The accreditors do hold a lot of power, because universities must be accredited by a federally recognized agency in order to access federal student aid.)

    During his presidential campaign, Trump himself called accreditation reform his “secret weapon” and accused accreditors of failing “to ensure that schools are not ripping off students and taxpayers.”

    The order calls for McMahon to suspend or terminate an accreditor’s federal recognition in order to hold it accountable if it violates federal civil rights law, according to a White House fact sheet. The executive order specifically says that requiring institutions “to engage in unlawful discrimination in accreditation-related activity under the guise of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ initiatives” would be considered a violation of the law.

    The order also singles out the American Bar Association, which accredits law schools, and the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, which accredits medical schools, and directs cabinet secretaries to investigate them. (The American Bar Association suspended DEI standards for its members in February, as did some other accreditors.)

    Beyond that, McMahon is tasked to “realign accreditation with student-focused principles.” That could include recognizing new accreditors, prioritizing intellectual diversity among faculty and requiring “high-quality, high-value academic programs,” though the fact sheet doesn’t say how that would be measured.

    White House staff secretary Will Scharf said during the event that accreditors have relied on “woke ideology” instead of merit and performance to accredit universities. He didn’t provide evidence for his claims, but the fact sheet cites the national six-year undergraduate graduation rate, which is at 64 percent, as one example of how accreditors have “failed to ensure quality.”

    “The basic idea is to force accreditation to be focused on the merit and the actual results that these universities are providing, as opposed to how woke these universities have gotten,” Scharf said.

    The Trump administration also wants to streamline the process to recognize accreditors and for institutions to change agencies. Some states that have required their public colleges to change accreditors have claimed that the Biden administration made the process too cumbersome.

    Scharf said the order charges the Education Department “to really look holistically at this accreditation mess and hopefully make it much better.”

    Trump didn’t say much about the order or what actions he hopes to see McMahon take next.

    Enforcement of Foreign Gifts

    The president is not the first government official this year who has sought to limit foreign influence on American colleges and universities.

    The House recently passed a bill, known as the DETERRENT ACT, which would amend Section 117 of the Higher Education Act to lower the threshold for what foreign gifts must be reported from $250,000 to $50,000. It also would require the disclosure of all gifts from countries of “concern,” like China and Russia, regardless of amount. The legislation advanced to the Senate in late March following a 241–169 vote.

    Rep. Tim Walberg, a Michigan Republican and chair of the committee that introduced the bill, praised Trump’s action Wednesday, saying it “underscores” a Republican commitment to “promoting transparency.”

    “Foreign entities, like the Chinese Communist Party, anonymously funnel billions of dollars into America’s higher education institutions—exploiting these ties to steal research, indoctrinate students, and transform our schools into beachheads in a new age of information warfare,” Walberg wrote in a statement shortly after Trump’s order was signed. “I am glad the Trump administration understands the grave importance of this threat, and I look forward to working with President Trump to protect our students and safeguard the integrity of America’s higher education system.”

    Colleges’ compliance with Section 117 has been a key issue for Republicans over the years. House lawmakers repeatedly criticized the Biden administration’s efforts to enforce the law, but former education secretary Miguel Cardona defended his agency’s actions. They also tried to pass the DETERRENT Act last session, but it was blocked by Democrats in the Senate.

    The executive order is broader than the DETERRENT Act and does little to distinguish itself aside from directing McMahon to work with the attorney general and heads of other departments where appropriate and to reverse or rescind any of Biden’s actions that “permit higher education institutions to maintain improper secrecy.”

    More Support for HBCUs

    Another order creates within the White House an initiative focused on historically Black colleges and universities and revokes a Biden executive order titled “White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity Through Historically Black Colleges and Universities.”

    During his first term, Trump moved an HBCU initiative at the Education Department to the White House as a largely symbolic gesture to show his support for Black colleges. That initiative continued under Joe Biden, though it was returned to the Education Department. Biden also created initiatives focused on Hispanic-serving institutions and tribal colleges. Trump ended those newly created initiatives during his first week in office.

    The executive order also established the President’s Board of Advisors on HBCUs at the Education Department, which appears to already exist. The panel last met in January, according to a Federal Register notice.

    Scharf said the order would ensure that HBCUs are “able to do their job as effectively and as efficiently as possible.”

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  • Trump Escalates Attack on Columbia With His Latest Demands

    Trump Escalates Attack on Columbia With His Latest Demands

    If Columbia University wants a financial relationship with the federal government, the Ivy League institution will need to overhaul its discipline process, ban masks, expel some students, put an academic department under review, give its campus security “full law enforcement authority” and reform its admissions practices.

    Those are just some of the sweeping and unprecedented demands the Trump administration made Thursday in a letter to the Manhattan-based institution. They come less than a week after the cancellation of $400 million in federal grants and contracts at the university. Columbia has until March 20 to respond.

    “We expect your immediate compliance with these critical next steps,” three Trump officials wrote. “After which we hope to open a conversation about immediate and long-term structural reforms that will return Columbia to its original mission of innovative research and academic excellence.”

    The demands escalate an already precarious situation for Columbia as it simultaneously faces pressure from the White House to comply and pressure from students and faculty to fight back.

    “We are in a state of shock and disbelief, and we are working with our administration to … reaffirm free speech and shared governance on campus, and to resist all Trump efforts to take academic decisions out of the hands of academics,” said Jean Howard, a member of the executive committee of the Columbia chapter of the American Association of University Professors. “Our administration has been cautious in dealing with Trump up to now. We’re hoping they will take a more aggressive posture in the future.”

    A Columbia spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed that officials are reviewing the letter but didn’t say Friday whether the university will comply with the demands. Several free speech and higher ed policy experts say the letter amounts to an unprecedented assault on higher education that could threaten foundational principles such as academic freedom. The demands, which don’t appear rooted in any specific legal authority, also offer yet another hint at how President Trump could reshape higher education.

    “The subjugation of universities to official power is a hallmark of autocracy,” Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia, said in a statement. “No one should be under any illusions about what’s going on here.”

    But the Trump administration says canceling the grants and contracts is necessary due to Columbia’s “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” In the letter, officials said that the university “has fundamentally failed to protect American students and faculty from antisemitic violence.”

    Building Tensions

    Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, criticized the letter as an “outrageous” example of “extreme federal overreach,” adding that institutional autonomy is a critical part of American higher education.

    “It’s perfectly reasonable for the federal government to hold all of those institutions accountable to civil rights laws, and we expect that,” he said. “But for the government to prescribe changes in academic structure, changes essentially in curriculum and to curtail research, that’s beyond the pale.”

    One of the letter’s 12 demands is for Columbia to put its Middle East, South Asian and African Studies department under academic receivership for at least five years. This would mean that faculty lose control of the department and the university puts an outside chair in charge. The letter didn’t specify why officials focused on this particular department. But it’s worth noting the academic division is home to Joseph Massad, a controversial tenured professor whom lawmakers have accused of making anti-Israel and anti-Jewish statements over the years.

    Federal scrutiny of colleges and universities, especially by Republicans, ratcheted up after the wave of pro-Palestinian protests in fall 2023 and spring 2024. But the Trump administration has only added to the pressure on colleges since it took office in January, quickly moving to cut funding to programs and institutions seemingly at odds with the president’s priorities.

    Columbia has been at the epicenter of the scrutiny, particularly after an encampment popped up on the small Manhattan campus’s central lawn last April. The protests culminated in early May, when students occupied a campus building and New York City police officers eventually stormed the hall, arresting those inside.

    Although other colleges faced protests and were accused of mishandling reports of antisemitic harassment and discrimination, Columbia took a hard line with protesters and was one of the few to bring in law enforcement. But that hasn’t stopped the Trump administration from targeting the university, nor has it led Columbia to draw a line and start fighting back.

    On Thursday, the same day the letter was sent, Columbia handed down student sanctions related to the building occupation. The sentences ranged from multiyear suspensions and expulsions to temporary degree revocations for graduates.

    Professors and other experts have warned that federal scrutiny—including high-profile grillings and subpoenas from Capitol Hill—could have damaging consequences for colleges. But alarm escalated significantly last week when the Trump administration bypassed the typical investigation process for civil rights violations and slashed Columbia’s access to grants and contracts.

    The cuts, made by Trump’s novel multidepartment antisemitism task force, are the first but likely not the last.

    The task force has already said at least 10 other universities are under review, including Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley. Meanwhile, the Office for Civil Rights is investigating allegations related to antisemitism at at least 60 colleges.

    Ryan Enos, a professor of government at Harvard, said Columbia needs to reject the demands and other universities need to speak up now in defense of higher education. If left on its own, Columbia could fail to defend itself, he said.

    “Other universities have an imperative to come to the defense of Columbia, because this is not just about Columbia,” Enos said. “The Trump administration is trying to attack all of higher education, and Columbia cannot try to mount a defense on its own.”

    Frustrations Abound

    Outside policy analysts and scholars on both sides of the political spectrum are frustrated with the situation—but for different reasons.

    Frederick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank, described Columbia’s handling of antisemitism on campus over the course of the past year as “egregious” and a “clear violation” of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on ethnicity or national origin. But at the same time, he said the Trump administration’s unclear process for determining a remedy is problematic.

    “Some of the things on the list I find pretty facially plausible. Others require a much higher standard of justification,” he said. “But because they have not been transparent and … there has not been any back-and-forth, there has not been a proper demonstration of the misconduct, which would be necessary to convince me that these specific remedies are called for.”

    Benjamin Ginsberg, a Johns Hopkins University professor who studies American politics and Jewish history, sees the situation as one of “competing truths.”

    “The Columbia administration has needed for a long time to act against antisemitic demonstrators and vandals on the campus,” Ginsberg said, noting that arrests without indictments or suspensions are not enough. But at the same time, “the Trump administration has overreached by threatening Columbia with dire consequences,” he added.

    He noted that the situation presents Columbia administrators with an opportunity.

    “Sure, the [Trump] administration has overstepped. It’s threatening to fire a cannon, drop a nuclear bomb,” Ginsberg said. “But as I say, that threat gives the Columbia administration an opportunity to do things that it has needed to do and probably wanted to do for some time.”

    He added that though he’s certainly hesitant when the government tries to dictate what departments are valid, in this instance, higher education has failed in its responsibility to its students. He also trusts that the Trump administration will be satisfied so long as Columbia carries out disciplinary action against students who disrupt academic life and threaten others’ safety.

    “Anytime the federal government tells the university how to organize its admissions processes, or which, if any, academic departments are valid and legitimate, of course I’m concerned,” Ginsberg said. “But my guess is that nothing will come of those particular demands. I mean, I hope the university won’t cave in.”

    On the other hand, Eddy Conroy, a senior education policy manager at New America, a left-leaning think tank, said all the Trump administration’s recent actions should be “deeply troubling.”

    Columbia has already demonstrated an aggressive response to student protests, which should be protected by the First Amendment, Conroy said, and it’s not up to the federal government to determine whether those disciplinary procedures were adequate.

    “We have an important history of peaceful protest in the United States, and sit-ins are part of that. Columbia can choose if it wants to deal with those things through its own disciplinary procedure or by pursuing trespassing charges,” he said. But to Trump, this “is a test case of how far we can push things when it comes to suppressing speech.”

    Conroy believes that the president is trying to make an example of Columbia in the hops that other institutions will then capitulate without fight, and the university’s response as a test dummy isn’t helping.

    “The [Trump] administration hits Columbia, and Columbia cowers and says, ‘Please hit us harder,’” he said.

    To Howard, the Columbia AAUP representative, Trump’s actions are a threat to the gemstone that is American higher education.

    We’ve become “the greatest university system in the world. But that requires independence. It requires the free expression of differing viewpoints,” she said. Trump’s demands are “so undemocratic, so against the norms and conventions of university life, that to comply would just destroy the heart of the institution.”

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  • Data stories from Achieving the Dream’s latest award winners

    Data stories from Achieving the Dream’s latest award winners

    Each year, Achieving the Dream lifts up at least one community college in its network for adopting practices and strategies leading to a student-focused culture, notable increases in student outcomes and a reduction of equity gaps.

    To be eligible for the Leah Meyer Austin Award, an institution must demonstrate four-year improvement of at least three percentage points in the IPEDS on-time completion for the level of associated credential awarded, or have been selected as one of the top 150 colleges in the Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence. The achievements of this year’s honorees—Chattanooga State Community College in Tennessee and Southwestern Oregon Community College—show how a holistic approach to student success that exists through the institution can result in whole-college transformation.

    Setting the bar: In evaluating applicants, ATD considers gateway metrics, including leading indicators (early momentum metrics) and lagging indicators (completion or transfer), with substantial improvement of three percentage points or more over three years.

    Equity metrics may highlight data such as the equity gap improvement between part-time and full-time student outcomes or between Pell-eligible and non-Pell-eligible students. Substantial improvement means closing or narrowing equity gaps over three years by at least two percentage points.

    The following data demonstrate not just what Chattanooga State Community College and Southwestern Oregon Community College did to earn their honor, but also ways that other institutions can tell their own data stories.

    Chattanooga State Community College actions and results: The Vision 2027 strategic plan has inspired a shift from 15-week to seven-week terms, more personalized academic advising, strengthened commitments to basic needs assistance and wraparound support services, and implementation of an affordable course materials program.

    • Fall-to-fall persistence rate from the fall 2019 cohort to the fall 2022 cohort saw a 7.1-percentage-point gain.
    • The credit completion rate jumped from 54.6 percent among the 2020 fall cohort to 66.4 percent among the fall 2023 cohort.
    • Articulation agreements and course road maps related to Tennessee Transfer Pathways resulted in an 8.2-percentage-point climb in the rate of students who transfer and earn a baccalaureate degree within six years of matriculating between the fall 2015 cohort and the fall 2018 cohort.
    • The adoption of a co-requisite model, with embedded tutors, for gateway English and math courses led to a rise in gateway math completion from 38.5 percent for the fall 2020 cohort to 49.5 percent for the fall 2023 cohort. Completion rates for gateway English courses, meanwhile, grew from 49.3 percent to 66.6 percent in that time frame. Approximately 45 to 48 percent of the college’s student population is still developing essential college-level academic skills.

    Southwestern Oregon Community College actions and results: This rural institution’s recent efforts have included engaging and supporting its community’s adult and part-time learner populations, such as by creating targeted student orientations, evaluating community practices and its portfolio of academic and workforce programs, meeting the special financial needs of first-generation adult learners, and improving online services (40 percent of Southwestern’s overall student body are online learners).

    • In comparing the 2017 cohort to the 2020 cohort, the four-year completion rate among part-time learners improved by 8.7 percentage points, narrowing the equity gap between adult learners and traditional-aged learners by 3.2 percentage points. Between adult learners and traditional-aged learners, the gap narrowed by 6.7 percentage points, as the rate of completion among the former rose 12.3 percentage points.
    • The equity gap between first-generation and continuing-generation learners in fall-to-fall persistence narrowed by three percentage points, from 8.2 percent in the fall 2019 cohort to 5.2 percent in the fall 2022 cohort.
    • From the fall 2017 cohort to the fall 2020 cohort, the overall four-year completion rate grew 6.6 percentage points, and the rate at which students transfer and earn a baccalaureate degree (despite severe geographical hardships) rose 3.7 percentage points from the fall 2015 cohort to the fall 2018 cohort.

    More information on both winners can be found here. In a March 31 webinar, Achieving the Dream will feature both winners.

    Is your institution or department tracking new KPIs related to student success, or using data in a new way? Tell us about it.

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  • Inside the Minds of Grad Students: 5 Key Findings from Our Latest Study on Graduate Enrollment

    Inside the Minds of Grad Students: 5 Key Findings from Our Latest Study on Graduate Enrollment

    As a higher education leader, it’s no secret that you’re facing a fiercely competitive graduate enrollment landscape. You know as well as I do that understanding what prospective students want and how they behave isn’t just helpful – it’s crucial to your institution’s success. That’s why we teamed up with UPCEA to conduct a deep dive into today’s post-baccalaureate students, uncovering their unique needs, expectations, and wants.

    We’ve published those insights in our latest report to help colleges and universities fine-tune their graduate enrollment strategies and deliver real results. You can download the complete report here: “Building a Better Pipeline: Enrollment Funnel Needs and Perspectives from Potential Post-Baccalaureate Students“

    Our research focused on individuals who expressed at least some interest in pursuing advanced education, and this study sheds light on what matters most to potential graduate students—everything from program types and communication preferences to application expectations.

    As we dug into the data, some obvious themes emerged. Here are five key findings that can prepare your institution to stand out in this tight market and guide you in shaping strategies that resonate, engage, and deliver results.

    1. Graduate enrollment is a crowded market—and the stakes are high

    This is no surprise to those working in higher ed in recent years. Graduate enrollment is slowing, with just a 1.1% projected increase over the next five years. Adding to the challenge, 20% of institutions dominate 77% of the market. For everyone else, it’s a fierce battle for a shrinking pool of candidates. To win, you’ll need a sharp, focused approach.

    2. Online programs are the clear favorite

    Did you know that 71% of prospective students are “extremely” or “very” interested in fully online programs? Hybrid formats come in a close second, while traditional in-person options are struggling to keep pace. The data confirms that flexibility isn’t a trend—it’s a necessity.

    3. Program information is a make-or-break factor

    Here’s something we see far too often: quality programs losing prospective students simply because critical details—like tuition costs and course requirements—are buried or missing entirely from the school’s website. In fact, 62% of students indicated they would drop off early in their search for this exact reason.

    The fix? It’s simpler than you might think. By optimizing your program pages and doubling down on SEO, you can turn passive visitors into engaged prospects.

    4. Financial transparency builds trust

    Sticker shock is real. High application fees, vague cost information, and limited financial aid details are among the top reasons students abandon the application process late in the game. By addressing these concerns clearly and directly, you’re not just solving a problem, you’re building trust.

    When it comes to connecting with prospective graduate students, email reigns supreme. Whether it’s inquiring about programs (47%), application follow-ups (67%), or receiving application decisions (69%), email is the channel students trust the most.
    But here’s the catch: your emails have to be timely, personalized, and relevant in order to make an impact.

    The key to graduate enrollment success is just a click away

    The insights highlighted above are just the tip of the iceberg. Imagine what’s possible when you apply them to your graduate enrollment strategy.

    If you’re ready to refine your approach and stay ahead of the curve, we’ve got you covered. Our report dives deeper into the data and uncovers actionable insights, including:

    • Positioning your online and hybrid offerings to meet growing demand
    • Optimizing program pages to emphasize the information students value most
    • Communicating financial information proactively to convert candidates
    • Building email outreach strategies that build trust and keep students engaged

    Grab your complimentary copy of the report today, and let’s start building a better pipeline together!

    Your roadmap to winning in the competitive graduate market.

    Optimize Your Enrollment Funnel

    Get the latest data on graduate student enrollment trends. Download the full report now.

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  • The latest roundup of DEI cuts across the country

    The latest roundup of DEI cuts across the country

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    The conservative-led fight against diversity, equity and inclusion efforts has been supercharged thanks to a powerful ally — the newly sworn-in President Donald Trump.

    In recent years, many state legislatures have enacted anti-DEI laws, and even more have proposed these measures. But these attempts happened under the Biden administration, which supported diversity initiatives at colleges and sought to strengthen them at the federal level.

    Trump has aimed to unravel that work.

    He signed multiple executive orders attacking diversity efforts in the first couple days of his second term, including one declaring that college DEI policies and programs could amount to violations of federal civil rights laws. It also prompted federal agencies to identify organizations, including colleges with endowments over $1 billion, for potential civil compliance investigations. 

    Another executive order directed agencies to end all DEI programs and positions “under whatever name they appear.” It further sought to terminate federal “equity-related” grants and contracts, endangering massive swaths of college research funding.

    Trump’s orders have incited confusion among higher education leaders and sparked legal challenges. However, colleges in states across the political spectrum are cutting DEI programs in response. 

    Below, Higher Ed Dive is rounding up the ever-growing list of colleges nixing DEI programs, pulling DEI language from institutional communications, and cancelling events aimed at supporting students from minority groups.

    Arizona State University

    On Jan. 27, the U.S. Office of Budget and Management released a memo calling for a massive freeze on federal funding to ensure government programs complied with Trump’s executive orders, including one targeting DEI. The news prompted Arizona State University to instruct its researchers to stop working on DEI-related activities on their federally funded projects and avoid using unspent funds allocated for DEI work.

    Even after OMB rescinded the memo — and White House officials released conflicting messages on where the freeze stood — Arizona State told researchers to hold off.

    “All Executive Orders remain in effect and will continue to be enforced,” the guidance said.

    Arizona State has since placed that announcement — and its entire webpage dedicated to research operations news — behind a university login. The university did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

    Boston University

    Boston University announced Jan. 30 that its Center for Antiracist Research would shutter on June 30. CAR’s 12 staff members will be employed through that time and “are receiving resources and support to assist with their transitions,” the university said. 

    The private nonprofit attributed the closure to the departure of Ibram X. Kendi, a prominent antiracist scholar and the center’s founder.

    Kendi, who left to lead the Howard University Institute for Advanced Study in Washington, D.C., acknowledged the challenge of opening the center during the pandemic and the “intense backlash over critical race theory” it faced. CAR opened in 2020, shortly after the murder of George Floyd and the resulting demonstrations against police violence.

    “I feel honored to have been able to do this work with you over the last five years,” Kendi said in a statement. “I am departing for an opportunity I could not pass up, but what connected us at CAR remains, especially during this precarious time.”

    CAR prompted concern in 2023 when it laid off more than half its staff — a total of 19 employees — citing a need to restructure. Boston University launched an investigation into CAR’s use of grant funds, though its final audit found “no issues” with how the center managed its money. 

    California Polytechnic State University

    California Polytechnic State University will eliminate its Office of University Diversity and Inclusion as an independent department and move it under the personnel division, the Mustang News, its student newspaper, reported in late January. 

    A spokesperson for the public minority-serving institution told Mustang News that the decision was “not in response to any outside influences.”

    As of Tuesday, the university’s statement affirming diversity is still viewable online.

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  • Top 10 Interesting Commerce related Project Topics [ Latest Project Report Format]

    Top 10 Interesting Commerce related Project Topics [ Latest Project Report Format]

    Selecting an interesting project topic is the key to success in commerce studies. The topics given above are not only the current trends, but they also have in them much scope for extensive research and practical application. Certainly, as far as the topic is concerned, one could develop his knowledge in commerce and finally come up with an impactful final year project for MBA , BBA , MCOM , BCOM exams conducting viva or its other related performances based on the same project like in job interviews to academic presentation skills.

     

    With these creative ideas in your hands, you’re going to start a very interesting academic journey that will not only meet the requirements but also satisfy and prepare you for future careers in any sector related to commerce. From studying digital payment systems to investigating trends in consumer behavior, every project brings deep, industry-relevant learning—and perhaps you will discover something truly new along the way.

     

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