Tag: Means

  • Making sense of specialisation: what the Post-16 White Paper means for university identity

    Making sense of specialisation: what the Post-16 White Paper means for university identity

    Over the weekend we published blogs on the art of reimagining universities and on why the TEF could collapse under the weight of DfE and the OfS’ expectations.

    Today’s blog was kindly authored by Nick Barthram, Strategy Partner at Firehaus and Merry Scott Jones, Transformation Partner at Firehaus and Associate Lecturer at Birkbeck, University of London.

    It is the tenth  blog in HEPI’s series responding to the post-16 education and skills white paper. You can find the other blogs in the series here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

    The government’s Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper sets a new tone for tertiary education in England. It is not just another skill or funding reform. It is a statement of intent about how universities, colleges, and employers should work together to build the country’s economic capability.

    The paper sets out a broad reform agenda built around stronger employer collaboration, higher-quality technical education, and a more flexible lifelong learning system. Initiatives such as Local Skills Improvement Plans and the Lifelong Learning Entitlement illustrate how the system is being reshaped to enable post-16 institutions to play distinct, complementary roles within a shared ecosystem of skills and innovation. All of this will unfold against a backdrop of constrained funding, uneven regional capacity, and growing regulatory pressure, making clarity of role more important than the White Paper itself acknowledges.

    While the paper avoids overt market language, the phrase comparative advantage does a lot of work. It invites universities to reflect on what they are best at and how that compares with others, without requiring them to openly compete. The intention is clear: to encourage institutions to define, and then demonstrate, their unique value. This is not new thinking. Advance HE, supported by a sector steering group including representation from AHUA, CUC, Guild HE and UUK, published a discussion paper last year on Measuring What Matters, exploring institutional performance and the importance of evidencing and communicating value creation.

    For some, that will mean sharper choices about subjects, audiences, partnerships, and purpose. For others, it will be about aligning their contribution to regional priorities. Not every university serves its region in the same way. The most prestigious universities will act as lighthouses, shaping national and international ecosystems through research and innovation. Others will play a more local role, deepening their community impact and supporting regional industry.

    The common thread is focus. Universities can no longer rely on breadth as a badge of strength. The challenge now is to identify what makes their contribution distinct and coherent, and to express that with clarity.

    From strategy to articulation

    Responding to the White Paper will be a demanding process. It will call for rigorous analysis, evidence-gathering, and an honest evaluation of institutional strengths and weaknesses. It will also require a sophisticated understanding of stakeholders’ and audiences’ needs. And of course, diplomacy will be required to manage the trade-offs that follow. Every decision will carry consequences for identity, culture, and relationships.

    In time, many universities will produce credible strategies: detailed statements of focus, lists of priorities, and maps of partnerships. But the real risk is stopping there. Institutional strategy alone will not create coherence.

    Universities often complete strategic work and then move straight to execution, adding imagery or campaigns before uniting everything around a purpose that aligns what you offer and who it’s for. The step that often gets missed is articulation – translating strategic intent into something people can understand, believe in, and act on.

    The White Paper calls for coherence across regions and the sector. Universities need to mirror that with coherence within their own walls. When purpose, culture, and communication line up behind a shared sense of direction, policy responses become practice, not just strategy. And this, fundamentally, is what the Government is seeking.

    The groundwork for meeting these changes is only just beginning, with many hard yards still to come. While covering that ground, there are lessons from outside the sector worth remembering.

    1. Specialisation  is relative
      A university’s strengths mean little in isolation. What matters is how those strengths stand out within the broader system of institutions, partners, and employers. Understanding where your work overlaps with others and where it uniquely contributes is essential. Knowing what not to do is often as important as knowing where to lead.
    1. Demand is defined by more than the UK Government
      The White Paper rightly highlights the importance of the national industrial strategy in shaping what is ‘in demand’. But universities should also consider the needs and motivations of their wider audiences: students, partners, and communities. Clarity about who your work matters to is as important as clarity about what that work is.
    1. Purpose must be expressed, not just defined
      Defining purpose is a strategic exercise; expressing it is an act of leadership. Purpose that remains on paper does not change behaviour, attract talent, or inspire partners. It must be made visible and tangible across everything the institution says and does, from how staff describe their work to how the university presents itself to the world.
    1. Perception matters as much as reality
      Universities are naturally driven by research and evidence. Yet specialisation is as much about being perceived as specialised as it is about being so in practice. The most successful institutions will work not only to build genuine expertise but also to occupy space in their audiences’ hearts and minds. Shifting perception requires consistency in both story and substance.
    1. Alignment is critical to success
      The institutions that succeed will be those that align intent, culture, and message. When leadership, staff, and students share a single understanding of what the university stands for, decision-making becomes simpler, collaboration easier, and communication more powerful. Alignment is not achieved through a campaign but through ongoing dialogue and consistent behaviour.

    A catalyst for clarity

    The Post-16 White Paper is ultimately a call for focus. For universities, that means not only deciding where they fit but demonstrating that fit clearly and consistently to students, partners, and staff.

    Those who stop at strategy will adapt. Those who move beyond it — articulating their role with confidence, coherence, and conviction — will help define what a purposeful, modern university looks like in the decade ahead.

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  • High quality learning means developing and upskilling educators on the pedagogy of AI

    High quality learning means developing and upskilling educators on the pedagogy of AI

    There’s been endless discussion about what students do with generative AI tools, and what constitutes legitimate use of AI in assessment, but as the technology continues to improve there’s a whole conversation to be had about what educators do with AI tools.

    We’re using the term “educators” to encompass both the academics leading modules and programmes and the professionals who support, enable and contribute to learning and teaching and student support.

    Realising the potential of the technologies that an institution invests in to support student success requires educators to be willing and able to deploy it in ways that are appropriate for their context. It requires them to be active and creative users of that technology, not simply following a process or showing compliance with a policy.

    So it was a bit worrying when in the course of exploring what effective preparation for digital learning futures could look like for our Capability for change report last year, it was noticeable how concerned digital and education leaders were about the variable digital capabilities of their staff.

    Where technology meets pedagogy

    Inevitably, when it comes to AI, some HE staff are enthusiastic early adopters and innovators; others are more cautious or less confident – and some are highly critical and/or just want it to go away. Some of this is about personal orientation towards particular technologies – there is a lively and important critical debate about how society comes into a relationship with AI technology and the implications for, well, the future of humanity.

    Some of it is about the realities of the pressures that educators are under, and the lack of available time and headspace to engage with developmental activity. As one education leader put it:

    Sometimes staff, they know that they need to change what they’re doing, but they get caught in the academic cycle. So every year it’s back to teaching again, really, really large groups of students; they haven’t had the time to go and think about how to do things differently.

    But there’s also an institutional strategic challenge here about situating AI within the pedagogic environment – recognising that students will not only be using it habitually in their work and learning, but that they will expect to graduate with a level of competence in it in anticipation of using AI in the workplace. There’s an efficiency question about how using AI can reprofile educator working patterns and workflows. Even if the prospect of “freeing up” lots of time might feel a bit remote right now, educators are clearly going to be using AI in interesting ways to make some of their work a bit more efficient, to surface insight from large datasets that might not otherwise be accessible, or as a co-creator to help enhance their thinking and practice.

    In the context of learning and teaching, educators need to be ready to go beyond asking “how do the tools work and what can I do with them?” and be prepared to ask and answer a larger question: “what does it mean for academic quality and pedagogy when I do?”

    As Tom Chatfield has persuasively argued in his recent white paper on AI and the future of pedagogy, AI needs to have a clear educative purpose when it is deployed in learning and teaching, and should be about actively enhancing pedagogy. Reaching this halcyon state requires educators who are not only competent in the technical use of the tools that are available but prepared to work creatively to embed those tools to achieve particular learning objectives within the wider framework and structures of their academic discipline. Expertise of this nature is not cheaply won – it takes time and resource to think, experiment, test, and refine.

    Educators have the power – and responsibility – to work out how best to harness AI in learning and teaching in their disciplines, but education leaders need to create the right environment for innovation to flourish. As one leader put it:

    How do we create an environment where we’re allowing people to feel like they are the arbiters of their own day to day, that they’ve got more time, that they’re able to do the things that they want to do?…So that’s really an excitement for me. I think there’s real opportunity in digital to enable those things.

    Introducing “Educating the AI generation”

    For our new project “Educating the AI generation” we want to explore how institutions are developing educator AI literacy and practice – what frameworks, interventions, and provisions are helpful and effective, and where the barriers and challenges lie. What sort of environment helps educators to develop not just the capability, but also the motivation and opportunity to become skilled and critical users of AI in learning and teaching? And what does that teach us about how the role of educators might change as the higher education learning environment evolves?

    At the discussion session Rachel co-hosted alongside Kortext advisor Janice Kay at the Festival of Higher Education earlier this month there was a strong sense among attendees that educating the AI generation requires universities to take action on multiple fronts simultaneously if they are to keep up with the pace of change in AI technology.

    Achieving this kind of agility means making space for risk-taking, and moving away from compliance-focused language to a more collaborative and exploratory approach, including with students, who are equally finding their feet with AI. For leaders, that could mean offering both reassurance that this approach is welcomed, and fostering spaces in which it can be deployed.

    In a time of such fast-paced change, staying grounded in concepts of what it means to be a professional educator can help manage the potential sense of threat from AI in learning and teaching. Discussions focused on the “how” of effective use of AI, and the ways it can support student learning and educator practice, are always grounded in core knowledge of pedagogy and education.

    On AI in assessment, it was instructive to hear student participants share a desire to be able to demonstrate learning and skills above and beyond what is captured in traditional assessment, and find different, authentic ways to engage with knowledge. Assessment is always a bit of a flashpoint in pedagogy, especially in constructing students’ understanding of their learning, and there is an open question on how AI technology can support educators in assessment design and execution. More prosaically, the risks to traditional assessment from large language models indicate that staff may need to spend proportionally more of their time on managing assessment going forward.

    Participants drew upon the experiences of the Covid pivot to emergency remote teaching and taking the best lessons from trialling new ways of learning and teaching as a useful reminder that the sector can pivot quickly – and well – when required. Yet the feeling that AI is often something of a “talking point” rather than an “action point” led some to suggest that there may not yet be a sufficiently pressing sense of urgency to kickstart change in practice.

    What is clear about the present moment is that the sector will make the most progress on these questions when there is sharing of thinking and practice and co-development of approaches. Over the next six months we’ll be building up our insight and we’d love to hear your views on what works to support educator development of AI in pedagogy. We’re not expecting any silver bullets, but if you have an example of practice to share, please get in touch.

    This article is published in association with Kortext. Join Debbie, Rachel and a host of other speakers at Kortext LIVE on Wednesday 11 February in London, where we’ll be discussing some of our findings – find out more and book your place here.

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  • What the NAEP Proficient Score Really Means for Learning – The 74

    What the NAEP Proficient Score Really Means for Learning – The 74


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    In September, The 74 published Robert Pondiscio’s opinion piece discussing how people without strong reading skills lack what it takes “to effectively weigh competing claims” and “can’t reconcile conflicts, judge evidence or detect bias.” He adds, “They may read the words, but they can’t test the arguments.”

    To make his case, Pondiscio relies on the skill level needed to achieve a proficient score or better on National Assessment of Educational Progress, a level that only 30% of tested students reached on 2024’s Grade 8 reading exam. Only 16% of Black students and 19% of Hispanics were proficient or more.

    Yet naysayers argue that the NAEP standard is simply set too high and that NAEP’s sobering messages are inaccurate. There is no crisis, according to these naysayers.

    So, who is right?

    Well, research on testing performance of eighth graders from Kentucky indicates that it’s Pondiscio, not the naysayers, who has the right message about the NAEP proficiency score. And, Kentucky’s data show this holds true not just for NAEP reading, but for NAEP math, as well.

    Kentucky offered a unique study opportunity. Starting in 2006, the Bluegrass State began testing all students in several grades with exams developed by the ACT, Inc. These tests include the ACT college entrance exam, which was administered to all 11th grade public school students, and the EXPLORE test, which was given to all of Kentucky’s public school eighth graders.

    Both the ACT and EXPLORE featured something unusual: “Readiness Benchmark” scores which ACT, Inc. developed by comparing its test scores to actual college freshman grades years later. Students reaching the benchmark scores for reading or math had at least a 75% chance to later earn a “C” or better in related college freshman courses.

    So, how did the comparisons between Kentucky’s benchmark score performance and the NAEP work out?

     Analysis found close agreement between the NAEP proficiency rates and the share of the same cohorts of students reaching EXPLORE’s readiness benchmarks. ​

    For example, in Grade 8 reading, EXPLORE benchmark performance and NAEP proficiency rates for the same cohorts of students never varied by more than four percentage points for testing in 2008-09, 2010-11, 2012-13 or 2014-15.

    The same, close agreement was found in the comparison of NAEP grade 8 math proficiency rates to the EXPLORE math benchmark percentages. 

    EXPLORE to NAEP results were also examined separately for white, Black and learning-disabled students. Regardless of the student group, the EXPLORE’s readiness benchmark percentages and NAEP’s proficient or above statistics agreed closely.

    Doing an analysis with Kentucky’s ACT college entrance results test was a bit more challenging because NAEP doesn’t provide state test data for high school grades. However, it is possible to compare each student cohort’s Grade 8 NAEP performance to that cohort’s ACT benchmark score results posted four years later when they graduated from high school. Data for graduating classes in 2017, 2019 and 2021 uniformly show close agreement for overall average scores, as well as for separate student group scores.

    It’s worth noting that all NAEP scores have statistical sampling errors. After those plus and minus errors are considered, the agreements between the NAEP and the EXPLORE and ACT test results look even better.

    The bottom line is: Close agreement between NAEP proficiency rates and ACT benchmark score results for Kentucky suggests that NAEP proficiency levels are highly relevant indicators of critical educational performance. ​Those claiming NAEP’s proficiency standard is set too high are incorrect.

    That leaves us with the realization that overall performance of public school students in Kentucky and nationwide is very concerning. Many students do not have the reading and math skills needed to navigate modern life. Instead of simply rejecting the troubling results of the latest round of NAEP, education leaders need to double down on building key skills among all students.


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  • A change in approach means research may never be the same again

    A change in approach means research may never be the same again

    At first glance Liz Kendall may look like an odd choice for Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology. She has never worked in science, she has rarely mentioned science directly in any intervention in her entire parliamentary career, and this is not a role with the kind of profile which will allow easy entry in any future leadership race.

    Although covering a related brief has never been a disqualifying quality for any predecessors, her move from the Department for Work and Pensions following her failed welfare reforms felt more like a hasty exit than a tactical manoeuvre.

    Her direct predecessor, Peter Kyle, often seemed more preoccupied with turning the UK into an “AI superpower” than he did the more tedious business of how the research ecosystem is governed and how it can be manipulated to fulfil the government’s ambitions. In truth, the business of research reform is not about more grand visions, frameworks, or strategies, but the rather grubbier work of deciding where to spend a finite amount of funding on an infinite amount of programmes.

    Practice and promise

    Kendall’s interest in research has so far been on the business of making the country better. As seen in her speeches during her time on the backbenches, research is about practical things like regional economies, skills, and curing diseases. For Kendall, “what matters is what works.” And in her speech at the Innovation for Growth Summit a management theory of research reform about balancing the speculative with the practical emerged.

    The premise of her speech was that the growth of the UK economy is reliant on making the most of the UK’s R&D strengths. To get the most out of the UK’s R&D strengths Kendall believes the government can neither be too directive and must allow curiosity-driven research to prosper. It should also not be too permissive, funding must be directed toward government priorities particularly when it comes to translation and application.

    It is a middle ground approach to research management for a third-way politician. In line with the three bucket model (outlined here by current Strathclyde professor of practice, research and innovation policy, and former DSIT and Research England person Ben Johnson) Kendall has clarified the government’s research funding allocations. There will be £14bn for curiosity driven R&D, £8bn toward the government’s priorities, and £7bn for scale up support. £7bn has also been announced in skills and infrastructure to secure the success of each bucket of activity.

    The label problem

    The labelling of existing funds in new ways is in itself not a strategy for economic growth. Clearly, doing the same thing, with the same people, in the same ways, would lead to exactly the same outcomes with a different name. A bit like when international research became about making the UK a “science superpower” or when every ambitious research programme was a “moonshot” or relabelling every economic benefit produced through research as “levelling up”.

    The boldest ambition of Kendall’s speech is perhaps the most understated. Kendall is committed to “doing fewer things better.” In a speech delivered at the same event by UKRI’s Chief Executive, Ian Chapman, this simple sentiment may have massive consequences.

    Chapman’s view is that the UK lacks any of the natural resources advantages of its major international competitors. Instead, the UK maintains its competitiveness through the smart use of its knowledge assets even if he believes these are “undervalued and underappreciated.”

    Chapman’s UKRI will be more interventionist. He will maintain curiosity driven research but warns that UKRI will not support the activities where it has no “right to win significant market-share in that sector,” and in backing spin-outs UKRI will be “much more selective.” The future being etched out here is one where there is much greater direction by government and UKRI toward funding that aligns with the industrial strategy and its mission for economic growth while maintaining a broad research base through curiosity driven research. Clearly, funding fewer programmes more generously means that some areas of research will receive less government funding.

    The government’s approach to research is coalescing around its approach to governing more broadly. Like the industrial strategy the government is not picking winners as such but creating the conditions through which some desirable policy outcomes like economic growth have a better chance of emerging. It’s a mix of directing funding toward areas where the UK may secure an advantage like the doubling of R&D investment in critical technologies, addressing market failures through measures like the £4.5m for Women in Innovation Awards, and regulating to shape the market with the emphasis of economic growth and sustainability in UKRI’s new framework document.

    Football’s coming home

    In her speech Kendall likened the selective funding approaches to the selective sports funding of the Olympics. Alighting on a different sporting metaphor Chapman recalled the time a non-specific European team he supports (almost definitely Liverpool) came back from 3-0 down to win the European Cup as a reminder that through collective support researchers can achieve great things.

    Perhaps, UK research has been more like the England men’s football team than it has the current Premier League champions. The right pieces in the wrong places with little sense of how the talent of individuals contribute to the success of the whole. In committing to funding fewer programmes better the government wants all its stars on the pitch in top condition. The challenge is that those who go from some funding to none are likely to feel their contributions to the team’s success have been overlooked

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  • What America’s Declining Happiness Means — and How Higher Education Fits In

    What America’s Declining Happiness Means — and How Higher Education Fits In

    A recent report has sounded an alarm: happiness in the United States is falling more sharply than in almost every other developed nation. According to coverage by CBS News, Americans increasingly report loneliness, deep political division, and diminished life satisfaction. While this trend is worrying in itself, a closer look shows that it’s not just a problem of individual melancholy — it reflects a broader weakening of social structures, civic trust, and community cohesion. Historically, these phenomena have been central to the nation’s sense of coherence; now, they may be eroding.

    Historical Roots and the Social Capital Framework

    To understand the scale of what’s happening, it helps to go back. Over two decades ago, Robert D. Putnam’s seminal Bowling Alone documented a dramatic decline in American “social capital” — the network of associations, civic participation, and interpersonal trust that undergirds a functioning democracy. Putnam traced declines in everything from civic organizations to informal social gatherings, arguing that this fraying of social infrastructure had profound consequences. 

    Social capital theory provides a useful lens here: trust between citizens, engagement in local institutions, and time spent in shared civic life are not just feel‑good extras, but foundations for collective resilience.

    Later empirical work has revisited these concerns. Weiss, Paxton, Velasco, and Ressler (2018) developed a newer measure of social capital and found evidence that the decline persists. Inequality also appears to play a role: as income gaps widen, interpersonal trust tends to decrease. In research published in Finance & Development, economists found that rising inequality explained a substantial portion of the decline in social trust in the United States.

    More recently, political scientists have documented how perceived political polarization erodes social trust. In a nationally representative panel study, Amber Hye‑Yon Lee showed that when people believe their country is deeply divided, their trust in fellow citizens drops — even beyond partisan loyalties. Pew Research Center data further illustrate this generational shift: younger cohorts, raised in a more polarized and atomized society, report lower social trust than earlier generations. 

    At the same time, the digital revolution hasn’t necessarily filled the gap. Sabatini and Sarracino (2014) found that while people are more active on social media, this does not compensate for lost in-person connection — and may even undermine trust. During the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers observed increased remote communication, but also stronger political echo chambers: in a study of 41,000 Americans’ social networks, political homophily (interacting mostly with those who share one’s partisan identity) increased. 

    Well-Being, Health, and Mortality

    The decline in social trust and cohesion is not just a sociological problem — it is deeply linked to health. A growing body of epidemiological research ties subjective well‑being to longevity and mortality. For instance, a widely cited study by Lawrence, Rogers, and Wadsworth found that lower happiness is associated with higher all‑cause mortality risk in U.S. adults. In another longitudinal study, researchers followed more than 30,000 adults over 14 years and found that individuals with low life satisfaction lived, on average, 8–10 years less than those with high satisfaction — even after controlling for sociodemographic and behavioral variables. 

    These findings suggest that declining happiness is not just a matter of mental distress or cultural malaise — it translates into concrete health inequities and life expectancy gaps.

    Recent Trends and the Global Context

    Over the past decade, the United States has slid in global happiness rankings, according to the World Happiness Report. Some analyses suggest that the U.S. now falls behind peer nations on measures of life evaluation, meaning that Americans are increasingly less satisfied with their lives in a broad, reflective sense. 

    Meanwhile, epidemiological studies of happy life expectancy — the number of years people spend in a state of subjective well‑being — show that although well-being improved from 1970–2000, gains were uneven by race and gender. The recent reversal or stagnation in happiness is thus especially alarming in light of these prior gains.

    The Role of Higher Education: Past, Present, and Potential Futures

    Given this historical and empirical context, higher education institutions have a complex and potentially pivotal role in responding to declining well-being.

    On one hand, universities could help rebuild social capital. Institutions of higher learning have unique capacity to foster cross-partisan civic engagement, to embed community-building in pedagogy, and to support students’ social and emotional development. By investing in mental health infrastructure, peer networks, and service-based learning, colleges could act as local laboratories for restoring trust and social cohesion.

    Higher education also has a research function: universities can produce evidence about what strengthens well-being, what interventions mitigate loneliness or political fragmentation, and how different models of community engagement impact long-term health outcomes. Through partnerships with public policy institutions, universities can help translate these findings into programs that bolster social infrastructure outside campus walls.

    However, higher education also runs risks. If institutions remain fragmented, politically polarized, or focused on prestige rather than public mission, they may contribute to social fragmentation rather than healing it. Elite universities, in particular, may be perceived as disconnected from broader communities, undermining trust rather than reinforcing it. In such a scenario, higher education may reproduce the very inequalities and isolation that are driving declining well‑being.

    Moreover, without deliberate strategies, campus networks may reinforce echo chambers: social connections among students may mirror broader partisan divides, especially in environments where political homogeneity is common.

    Health Equity Implications

    The decline in American happiness intersects directly with issues of health equity. Lower well-being and eroded trust disproportionately affect marginalized communities — those with fewer economic resources, less social support, and weaker civic infrastructure. When universities take an active role in promoting well-being and rebuilding social capital, they not only support individual students but may contribute to reducing structural health disparities.

    Conversely, if higher education plays a passive role, or if access to supportive, socially rich campus environments is limited to privileged groups, the decline in happiness may deepen existing inequities. The gap in life expectancy tied to subjective well-being suggests that we cannot ignore the social determinants of happiness: economic inequality, community fragmentation, political polarization, and institutional trust all matter.

    A Call to Action

    To address this crisis, higher education leaders, policymakers, and public health practitioners should consider the following:

    1. Reinforce community-building: Colleges should invest in programs that promote cross-group interaction, civic participation, and social trust.

    2. Prioritize mental health: Expand counseling, peer support, and proactive well-being initiatives, especially for students who might otherwise fall through the cracks.

    3. Align research with public value: Fund and promote research on social cohesion, well-being interventions, and the relationship between trust and health, and ensure that findings inform public policy.

    4. Foster institutional humility and outreach: Universities should engage with local communities, not as isolated centers of prestige, but as partners in building social infrastructure and resilience.

    5. Measure what matters: Beyond graduation rates and research output, institutions should track well-being metrics — social trust, belonging, mental health — as central indicators of their impact.

    It Doesn’t Have to Be This Bad 

    The decline in happiness across the United States is not a passing phase or a matter of individual pathology. Rather, it reflects deep shifts in social trust, political cohesion, and community infrastructure. Historically, scholars like Putnam sounded the alarm on social capital’s erosion. Today, health researchers warn that falling well‑being shortens lives and exacerbates inequalities.

    Higher education, if reoriented toward building connections, purpose, and trust, could play a vital role in reversing this trajectory. But if universities remain inward-looking or inequality-driven, they risk accelerating the very forces that undermine societal well-being. The stakes are high — not only for individual students, but for the future health and cohesion of the nation.

    Scholarly Sources:

    • Lee, Amber H. Y. “Social Trust in Polarized Times: How Perceptions of Political Polarization Affect Americans’ Trust in Each Other.” Political Behavior, 2022. PMC

    • Weiss, Inbar, Pamela Paxton, Kristopher Velasco, and Robert W. Ressler. “Revisiting Declines in Social Capital: Evidence from a New Measure.” Social Indicators Research, 2018. PMC

    • Lawrence, Elizabeth M., Richard G. Rogers, and Tim Wadsworth. “Happiness and Longevity in the United States.” Social Science & Medicine, 2015. PMC

    • Study on life satisfaction and mortality (14-year follow-up): PMC

    • Research on income inequality and trust: “In Equality, We Trust” (IMF / Finance & Development) IMF

    • Study of happy life expectancy, 1970–2000: PMC

    • Putnam, Robert D. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. (on social capital history) Wikipedia+1

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  • WEEKEND READING: Building the transatlantic cyber bridge: what ‘Careers-First’ really means for the future workforce

    WEEKEND READING: Building the transatlantic cyber bridge: what ‘Careers-First’ really means for the future workforce

    This blog was kindly authored by Professor Paul Marshall, Vice-President (Global Campus) and Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Careers & Enterprise), University of East London.

    As the UK Government prepares its long-awaited White Paper on the future of higher education, it is timely to reflect on the purpose and impact of our universities. At their best, they are not simply sites of knowledge creation – they are instruments of national capability. Few challenges illustrate that more vividly than cybersecurity.

    When I joined a panel at the CyberBay Cybersecurity Conference in Tampa earlier this month, Dr Richard Munassi, Managing Director of Tampa Bay Wave, opened with a warning that set the tone for the discussion:

    We are in a cyber war – a war waged by well-financed, state-backed criminal organisations so sophisticated that they have their own HR divisions.

    He was right. Earlier this year, Jaguar Land Rover was forced to suspend production after a ransomware attack that rippled across its global supply chain. The UK Government’s intervention – with a support package approaching £1.5 billion – made clear that cybersecurity is not an IT issue; it is economic infrastructure.

    As the sector awaits the Government’s vision for the future, one truth already stands out: higher education must not only prepare individuals for work –  it must prepare the nation for risk.

    At the University of East London (UEL), that challenge sits at the heart of our institutional strategy, Vision 2028, which seeks to transform lives through education, innovation, and enterprise. The strategy’s organising principle – Careers-First – redefines employability as capability.

    Rather than positioning careers as an outcome of study, it embeds professional practice, enterprise, and resilience into every degree and partnership. The test for every programme is simple: does it equip our students to adapt, contribute, and lead in industries defined by constant change?

    Nowhere is this approach more tangible than in cybersecurity. Our BSc Cyber Security & Networks, MSc Information Security & Digital Forensics, and Cyber Security Technical Professional Degree Apprenticeship all combine rigorous academic study with live, industry-based application. 

    Students work directly with BT, IBM, Fujitsu, and Ford, tackling real-time challenges in threat analysis, data forensics, and network defence. By the time they graduate, they are not simply work-ready — they are work-proven, having contributed to the resilience of the very sectors they will soon join.

    The results speak for themselves:

    • With Siemens UK, students tested firmware vulnerabilities in industrial systems, informing Siemens’ internal training programmes.
    • With Barclays Eagle Labs, they created a fraud-analysis dashboard now in pilot testing.
    • With NHS Digital, they developed a ransomware-simulation tool to train hospital teams in incident response.

    Each collaboration demonstrates a single idea: learning is most powerful when it changes the world beyond the classroom.

    UEL’s Institute for Connected Communities (ICC), led by Professor Julia Davidson OBE, anchors this model in research excellence and policy leadership. The ICC brings together computing, criminology, psychology, and social science to examine the human, technical, and organisational dimensions of online safety.

    Its research informs the UK Council for Internet Safety, Ofcom, UNICEF, and multiple international governments. Through projects such as Global Kids Online, ICC research directly shapes teaching, ensuring that our graduates understand not only how to secure systems, but why digital trust matters to society.

    As policymakers consider the future role of universities in the forthcoming White Paper, the ICC already provides a working example of how academic research translates into practical and regulatory impact.

    The White Paper will also need to consider how global collaboration strengthens national capability. UEL’s Global Campus model demonstrates how this can work in practice — connecting students and employers across India, Greece, Egypt, and the United States to create shared pathways for study, innovation, and employment.

    Our developing partnership with Tampa Bay Wave, framed within the UK–Florida Memorandum of Understanding (2023), offers one illustration. We are building both virtual and physical experiences that will enable UEL students to engage with Florida’s growing cybersecurity and fintech ecosystem through mentoring, live projects, and placements, while providing a London base for US start-ups entering the UK market.

    A genuine transatlantic bridge is being constructed –  designed for movement in both directions, connecting students, researchers, and entrepreneurs to co-create secure-by-design technologies and governance frameworks. It is the Careers-First model, scaled globally.

    The next phase of cybersecurity will occur where AI, data, and physical systems converge. Attacks will target intelligent infrastructure –  transport grids, hospitals and manufacturing. UEL is already embedding these challenges into its curriculum, guided by ICC research. Students design adversarial-AI tests, examine supply-chain vulnerabilities, and develop frameworks for organisational resilience.

    This approach recognises that technology evolves faster than any static syllabus. Students are therefore treated as co-creators, working alongside academics and employers to design the solutions industry will need next.

    As the UK Government prepares its White Paper, one principle should underpin the national conversation: universities are not peripheral to resilience –  they are central to it. They educate the workforce, generate the research, and sustain the partnerships that keep the nation secure.

    UEL’s Careers-First model, aligned to Vision 2028, embodies that principle. It fuses employability, enterprise, and global engagement into one coherent system of capability. Our collaboration with Tampa Bay Wave is a single, tangible expression of this –  connecting East London’s lecture theatres to innovation ecosystems across the Atlantic.

    In a global cyber war, the question is not whether universities should respond, but how fast they can. At UEL, that response is already underway –  this is what Careers-First looks like.

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  • Preparing students for the world of work means embracing an AI-positive culture

    Preparing students for the world of work means embracing an AI-positive culture

    When ChatGPT was released in November 2022, it sent shockwaves through higher education.

    In response, universities moved at pace during the first half of 2023 to develop policy and good practice guidance for staff and students on appropriate use of GenAI for education purposes; the Russell Group’s Principles on the use of generative AI tools in education are particularly noteworthy. Developments since, however, have been fairly sluggish by comparison.

    The sector is still very much at an exploratory phase of development: funding pilots, individual staff using AI tools for formative learning and assessment, baseline studies of practice, student and staff support, understanding of tools’ functionality and utilisation etc. The result is a patchwork of practice not coherent strategy.

    Yet AI literacy is one of the fastest growing skills demanded by industry leaders. In a survey of 500 business leaders from organisations in the US and UK, over two-thirds respondents considered it essential for day-to-day work. Within AI literacy, demand for foundation skills such as understanding AI-related concepts, being able to prompt outputs and identify use cases surpassed demand for advanced skills such as developing AI systems.

    Students understand this too. In HEPI’s Student generative AI survey 2025 67 per cent of student respondents felt that it was essential to understand and use AI to be successful in the workplace whereas only 36 per cent felt they had received AI skill-specific support from their institution.

    There is a resulting gap between universities’ current support provision and the needs of industry/ business which presents a significant risk.

    Co-creation for AI literacy

    AI literacy for students includes defining AI literacy, designing courses aligned with identified learning outcomes, and assessment of those outcomes.

    The higher education sector has a good understanding of AI literacy at a cross disciplinary level articulated through several AI literacy frameworks. For example, UNESCO’s AI Competency Framework for Students or the Open University in the UK’s own framework. However, most universities have yet to articulate nuanced discipline-specific definitions of AI literacy beyond specialist AI-related subjects.

    Assessment and AI continues to be a critical challenge. Introducing AI tools in the classroom to enhance student learning and formatively assess students is fairly commonplace, however, summative assessment of students’ effective use of AI is much less so. Such “authentic assessments” are essential if we are serious about adequately preparing our students for the future world of work. Much of the negative discourse around AI in pedagogy has been around academic integrity and concerns that students’ critical thinking is being stifled. But there is a different way to think about generative AI.

    Co-creation between staff and students is a well-established principle for modern higher education pedagogy; there are benefits for both students and educators such as deeper engagement, shared sense of ownership and enhanced learning outcomes. Co-creation in the age of AI now involves three co-creators: students, educators and AI.

    Effective adoption and implementation of AI offers a range of benefits specific to students, specific to educators and a range of mutual benefits. For example, AI in conjunction with educators, offers the potential for significantly enhancing the personalisation of students’ experience on an on-demand basis regardless of the time of day. AI can also greatly assist with assessment processes such as marking turnaround times and enhanced consistency of feedback to students. AI also allows staff greater data-driven insights for example into students at risk of non-progression, areas where students performed well or struggled in assessments allowing targeted follow up support.

    There is a wealth of opportunity for innovation and scholarship as the potential of co-creation and quality enhancement involving staff, students and AI is in its infancy and technology continues to evolve at pace.

    Nurturing an AI-positive culture

    At Queen Mary University of London, we are funding various AI in education pilots, offering staff development programmes, student-led activities and through our new Centre for Excellence in AI Education, we are embedding AI meaningfully across disciplines. Successfully embedding AI within university policy and practice across the breadth of operations of the institution (education, research and professional practice), requires an AI-positive culture.

    Adoption of AI that aligns with the University’s values and strategy is key. It should be an enabler rather than some kind of add-on. Visible executive leadership for AI is critical, supported by effective use of existing champions within schools and faculties, professional services and the student body to harness expertise, provide support and build capacity. In some disciplines, our students may even be our leading institutional AI experts.

    Successful engagement and partnership working with industry, business and alumni is key to ensure our graduates continue to have the necessary skills, knowledge and AI literacy to achieve success in the developing workplace.

    There is no escaping the fact that embedding AI within all aspects of a university’s operations requires significant investment in terms of technology but also its people. In our experience, providing practical support through CPD, case studies, multimedia storytelling etc whilst ensuring space for debate are essential for a vibrant, evolving community of practice.

    A key challenge is trying to maintain oversight and co-ordinate activities in large complex institutions in a field that is evolving rapidly. Providing the necessary scaffolding in terms of strategy and policy, regulatory compliance and appropriate infrastructure whilst ensuring there is sufficient flexibility to allow agility and encourage innovation is another key factor for an AI-positive culture to thrive.

    AI is reshaping society and building an AI-positive culture is central to the future of higher education. Through strategic clarity and cultural readiness, universities need to effectively harness AI to enhance student learning, support staff, improve productivity and prepare students for a changing world.

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  • Celebrating heritage means honoring students’ languages

    Celebrating heritage means honoring students’ languages

    Key points:

    Every year, Hispanic Heritage Month offers the United States a chance to honor the profound and varied contributions of Latino communities. We celebrate scientists like Ellen Ochoa, the first Latina woman in space, and activists like Dolores Huerta, who fought tirelessly for workers’ rights. We use this month to recognize the cultural richness that Spanish-speaking families bring to our communities, including everything from vibrant festivals to innovative businesses that strengthen our local economies.

    But there’s a paradox at play.

    While we spotlight Hispanic heritage in public spaces, many classrooms across the country require Spanish-speaking students to set aside the very heart of their cultural identity: their language.

    This contradiction is especially personal for me. I moved from Puerto Rico to the mainland United States as an adult in hopes of building a better future for myself and my family. The transition was far from easy. My accent often became a challenge in ways I never expected, because people judged my intelligence or questioned my education based solely on how I spoke. I could communicate effectively, yet my words were filtered through stereotypes.

    Over time, I found deep fulfillment working in a state that recognizes the value of bilingual education. Texas, where I now live, continues to expand biliteracy pathways for students. This commitment honors both home languages and English, opening global opportunities for children while preserving ties to their history, family, and identity.

    That commitment to expanding pathways for English Learners (EL) is urgently needed. Texas is home to more than 1.3 million ELs, which is nearly a quarter of all students in the state, the highest share in the nation. Nationwide, there are more than 5 million ELs comprising nearly 11 percent of the U.S. public school students; about 76 percent of ELs are Spanish speakers. Those figures represent millions of children who walk into classrooms every day carrying the gift of another language. If we are serious about celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month, we must be serious about honoring and cultivating that gift.

    A true celebration of Hispanic heritage requires more than flags and food. It requires acknowledging that students’ home languages are essential to their academic success, not obstacles to overcome. Research consistently shows that bilingualism is a cognitive asset. Those who are exposed to two languages at an early age outperform their monolingual peers on tests of cognitive function in adolescence and adulthood. Students who maintain and develop their native language while learning English perform better academically, not worse. Yet too often, our educational systems operate as if English is the only language that matters.

    One powerful way to shift this mindset is rethinking the materials students encounter every day. High-quality instructional materials should act as both mirrors and windows–mirrors in which students see themselves reflected, and windows through which they explore new perspectives and possibilities. Meeting state academic standards is only part of the equation: Materials must also align with language development standards and reflect the cultural and linguistic diversity of our communities.

    So, what should instructional materials look like if we truly want to honor language as culture?

    • Instructional materials should meet students at varying levels of language proficiency while never lowering expectations for academic rigor.
    • Effective materials include strategies for vocabulary development, visuals that scaffold comprehension, bilingual glossaries, and structured opportunities for academic discourse.
    • Literature and history selections should incorporate and reflect Latino voices and perspectives, not as “add-ons” during heritage month, but as integral elements of the curriculum throughout the year.

    But materials alone are not enough. The process by which schools and districts choose them matters just as much. Curriculum teams and administrators must center EL experiences in every adoption decision. That means intentionally including the voices of bilingual educators, EL specialists, and, especially, parents and families. Their life experiences offer insights into the most effective ways to support students.

    Everyone has a role to play. Teachers should feel empowered to advocate for materials that support bilingual learners; policymakers must ensure funding and policies that prioritize high-quality, linguistically supportive instructional resources; and communities should demand that investments in education align with the linguistic realities of our students.

    Because here is the truth: When we honor students’ languages, we are not only affirming their culture; we are investing in their future. A child who is able to read, write, and think in two languages has an advantage that will serve them for life. They will be better prepared to navigate an interconnected world, and they carry with them the ability to bridge communities.

    This year, let’s move beyond celebrating what Latino communities have already contributed to America and start investing in what they can become when we truly support and honor them year-round. That begins with valuing language as culture–and making sure our classrooms do the same.

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  • The resumption of student loan payments means students will need new policies — and our help

    The resumption of student loan payments means students will need new policies — and our help

    After a three-year pause prompted by the pandemic, the clock on student loan repayments suddenly started ticking again in September 2023, and forbearance ended last September. For millions of borrowers like Shauntee Russell, the resumption of payments marked a harsh return to financial reality.  

    Russell, a single mother of three from Chicago, had received $127,000 in student loan forgiveness through the SAVE program, and had experienced profound relief at having that $632 monthly payment lifted from her shoulders. SAVE exemplified both the transformative power of debt relief and the urgent need to continue this fight — but now SAVE has been suspended. 

    Such setbacks cannot be the end of our story, as I document in my forthcoming book. The resumption of loan payments, while painful, must serve as a rallying cry rather than a surrender. We stand at a critical juncture. The Supreme Court’s devastating blow to former President Biden’s initial forgiveness plan and the ongoing legal challenges to programs like SAVE have left 45 million borrowers in a state of financial limbo. The fundamental inequities of our higher education system have never been more apparent.  

    Black students graduate with nearly 50 percent more debt than their white counterparts, while women hold roughly two-thirds of all outstanding student debt — a staggering $1.5 trillion that continues to grow. These aren’t just statistics; they represent systemic barriers that prevent entire communities from achieving economic mobility. 

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

    The students I interviewed while reporting on this crisis reveal the human cost of inaction. They include Maria Sanchez, a nursing student in St. Louis who skips meals to save money and can only access textbooks through library loans.  

    Then there is Robert Carroll, who gave up his dorm room in Cleveland and now alternates between friends’ couches just to stay in school.  

    These students represent the millions who are working multiple jobs, sacrificing basic needs and seeing their dreams deferred under the weight of financial pressure. 

    Yet what strikes me most is their resilience and determination. Despite these overwhelming obstacles, these students persist, driven by the same belief that motivated civil rights leaders like Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. — that education is the pathway to economic empowerment and social justice. 

    The current political landscape, with Donald J. Trump’s return to the presidency and a Republican-controlled Congress, presents unprecedented challenges. Plans to dismantle key borrower protections and efforts to eliminate the Department of Education signal a dark period ahead for student debt relief.  

    But history teaches us that progress often comes through sustained grassroots organizing and innovative policy solutions at multiple levels of government and society. 

    State governments have an opportunity to fill the federal void through programs like Massachusetts’ Student Loan Borrower Bill of Rights and Maine’s Student Loan Repayment Tax Credit. 

    Universities must step up with institutional relief programs, as my own institution, Trinity Washington University, did when it settled $1.8 million in student balances during the pandemic. 

    The Black church, which has long understood the connection between education and liberation, continues to provide crucial support through scholarship programs. Organizations like the United Negro College Fund, the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education remain vital pillars in making higher education accessible. 

    Still, individual, institutional and state efforts, while necessary, are not sufficient. We need comprehensive federal action that treats student debt as what it truly is: a civil rights issue and a moral imperative. The magnitude of the crisis — it affects Americans across every congressional district — creates unique opportunities for bipartisan coalition building. 

    Smart advocates are already reframing the narrative by replacing partisan talking points with economic arguments that resonate across ideological lines: workforce development, entrepreneurship and American competitiveness on the world stage.  

    When student debt prevents nurses from serving rural communities, teachers from working in underserved schools and young entrepreneurs from starting businesses, it becomes an economic drag that affects everyone.  

    Related: How Trump is changing higher education: The view from 4 campuses 

    The path to federal action may require creative approaches — perhaps through tax policy, regulatory changes or targeted relief for specific professions — but the political mathematics of 45 million impacted voters ultimately makes comprehensive action not just morally necessary, but politically inevitable.  

    Student debt relief is not about handouts — it’s about honoring the promise that education should be a ladder up, not an anchor weighing down entire generations; it’s about ensuring that Shauntee Russell’s relief becomes the norm, not the exception. The fight is far from over.  

    The young activists I met at the March on Washington 60th anniversary understood something profound: Their debt is not their fault, but their fight is their responsibility. They carry forward the legacy of those who came before them who believed that access to education should not depend on one’s family wealth, and that crushing debt should not be the price of pursuing knowledge. 

    The arc of history still bends toward justice — but in this era of political resistance, we must be prepared to bend it ourselves through sustained organizing, innovative policy solutions and an unwavering commitment to the principle that education is a right, not a privilege reserved for the wealthy. 

    The resumption of payments is not the end of this story. It’s the beginning of the next chapter in our fight for educational equity and economic justice. And this chapter, like those before it, will be written by the voices of the millions who refuse to let debt define their destiny. 

    Jamal Watson is a professor and associate dean of graduate studies at Trinity Washington University and an editor at Diverse Issues In Higher Education. 

    Contact the opinion editor at [email protected]. 

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

    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.

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