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California’s schools and colleges receive billions in federal funding each year — money that President Donald Trump is threatening to terminate over the actions of one student. AB Hernandez, a junior from Jurupa Valley High School, is transgender, and on May 31 she won first- and second-place medals at the state track and field championship.
“A Biological Male competed in California Girls State Finals, WINNING BIG, despite the fact that they were warned by me not to do so,” Trump said in a social media post last week. “As Governor Gavin Newscum (sic) fully understands, large scale fines will be imposed!!!”
Despite this post and a similar threat a few days earlier to withhold “large-scale” federal funding from California, Trump lacks the authority to change the state’s policy toward transgender athletes without an act of Congress or a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. And recent court cases suggest that Trump also may have a hard time withholding money from California.
California state law explicitly allows transgender students in its K-12 school districts to compete on the team that matches their preferred gender, but the Trump administration has issued multiple directives that restrict access to girls’ sports, including a letter last week from the U.S. Department of Justice telling high schools to change their policies.
On Monday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta sued the Justice Department over its letter, saying it had “no right to make such a demand.”
“Let’s be clear: sending a letter does not change the law,” said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond in a statement to school districts. “The DOJ’s letter to school districts does not announce any new federal law, and state law on this issue has remained unchanged since 2013.” On Monday, Thurmond sent his own letter to the Trump administration, refuting its legal argument.
California receives over $2 billion each year for its low-income Title I schools, as well as over $1 billion for special education. At the college level, students receive billions in federal financial aid and federal loans. Even if Trump lacks the legal authority to change state law, he could still try to withhold funding from California, just like he tried with Maine. In February, Trump asked Maine Gov. Janet Mills if her state was going to comply with a presidential executive order — which is not a law — that directed schools to bar transgender girls from certain sports. Mills said she’d comply with “state and federal laws,” effectively rebuking the president.
The Trump administration has since tried to withhold funding from Maine, but legal challenges have prevented it.
The NCAA vs. California state law
Trump made banning transgender youth athletes a centerpiece of his 2024 presidential campaign, and it’s remained a focal point for his administration this year. Nationally, Americans increasingly support restrictions on transgender athletes, according to surveys from the Pew Research Center. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who last year signed legislation supporting trans students, spoke out against transgender athletes in a podcast this March, saying it was “deeply unfair” to allow transgender girls to compete in girls’ sports.
Female athletes with higher levels of testosterone or with masculine characteristics have long faced scrutiny, biological testing and disqualification. Debates about who gets to participate in girls’ or women’s sports predate the Trump administration — and Newsom — and policies vary depending on the athletic institution.
In 2004, the International Olympic Committee officially allowed transgender athletes to compete in the sport that aligned with their gender identity, as long as the athlete had sex reassignment surgery, only to change that policy in 2015 and require hormone testing. In 2021, the committee changed the policy again, creating more inclusive guidelines but giving local athletic federations the power to create their own eligibility criteria.
Across California, youth leagues, private sports leagues and other independent athletic associations all have their own policies. Some allow transgender women and men to participate; some restrict who can compete. Some require “confirmation” of a participant’s gender, such as a government ID or statements from health care professionals, while other associations take the athletes at their word.
California’s colleges and universities are not allowed to discriminate against transgender students but state law doesn’t provide any guidance beyond that. After the presidential executive order in February, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), which independently regulates college sports, changed its rules, prohibiting transgender women from competing and putting colleges in a bind. Roughly 60 California universities are part of the NCAA, including almost all of the UC and many Cal State campuses. Community colleges, which represent the bulk of the state’s undergraduates, are not part of the NCAA.
“There’s a strong argument (the NCAA rules) could violate state law and federal equal protection,” said Elana Redfield, the federal policy director at UCLA’s Williams Institute, which studies LGBTQ+ issues.
Amy Bentley-Smith, a spokesperson for the California State University system, declined to comment about how the NCAA policy conflicts with state and federal regulations. She said the Cal State campuses abide by the NCAA rules — preventing transgender athletes from competing — while still following state and federal non-discrimination laws regarding trans students.
Stett Holbrook, a spokesperson for the University of California system, said the UC does not have a system-wide policy for transgender athletes. He did not respond to questions about whether the campuses abide by NCAA rules.
Unlike the NCAA, the California Community College Athletic Association allows transgender athletes to compete. A spokesperson for the association, Mike Robles, said he’s aware of the NCAA rules and the Trump administration’s priorities but he did not say whether the association will modify its own policy.
The U.S. Constitution is silent on trans students
In February, just days after the president’s inauguration and the executive order regarding transgender athletes, the U.S. Department of Education launched an investigation into San Jose State after a women’s volleyball player outed her teammate as transgender. The education department has yet to provide an update on that investigation.
With the Trump administration’s focus now on CA K-12 school districts, the legal debate has intensified. In its letter to the state’s public schools last week, Assistant U.S. Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said allowing transgender girls to compete in girls’ sports is “in violation” of the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution and asked schools to change their policies.
But the U.S. Constitution doesn’t say anything about transgender athletes, at least not explicitly.
Instead, Dhillon is offering an interpretation of the Constitution, “which doesn’t carry the full force of law,” Redfield said. The laws that do govern transgender athletes, such Title IX, aren’t clear about what schools should do, and the U.S. Supreme Court — the entity with the power to interpret federal law and the Constitution — has yet to decide on the matter.
That said, many lower level judges have already weighed in on whether the Constitution or Title IX law protects transgender students or athletes.“The preponderance of cases are in favor of trans plaintiffs,” Redfield said. “The federal government is contradicting some pretty strong important precedent when they’re making these statements.”
After Trump’s comments about AB Hernandez, the nonprofit entity that regulates high school sports, the California Interscholastic Federation, changed its policy, slightly. For the state’s track and field championship, the federation said it would implement a new process, whereby AB Hernandez would share her award with any “biological female” that she beat. All “biological female” athletes below Hernandez would also move up in ranking.
On May 31, Hernandez shared the first-place podium twice and the second-place podium once, each time with her competitors smiling supportively, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
A spokesperson for the governor, Izzy Gardon, said that approach is a “reasonable, respectful way to navigate a complex issue without compromising competitive fairness.”
State legislators from both parties want to expand family child care — the home-based sector of licensed child care, which has shrunk by more than a third since 2018. Both the House and Senate budget proposals include pilots to open new programs to meet the needs of families and employers.
For the past two years, a team from the nonprofit Southwestern Child Development Commission (SWCDC) has done just that, creating North Carolina’s first statewide system of support for family child care. In the past year, the organization has helped launch 27 new family child care programs, 20 of which are open, creating at least 160 new slots for children. Two are the first family child care programs in their counties.
Since September 2023, the team has awarded start-up grants to another 26 programs and business sustainability grants to 38 programs. It has created the first statewide family child care mentorship program, regional communities of practice, and a marketing campaign that has garnered interest from more than 200 prospective providers since April.
As state leaders ask how to improve child care access and affordability, the project’s lessons should carry forward, said Daniel Bates, the statewide project’s manager.
“I just really felt like we’ve done something here, and I hope that, no matter what, it still continues, because family child care is so incredibly important,” Bates said. “And they are part of early childhood education.”
‘People that will be around for a while’
Expanding family child care takes one-on-one support for new providers who often bring a passion for children but little knowledge of the complex regulations and business challenges that come with starting and operating a program, the project leaders said. It also requires funding.
In 2024, SWCDC, a nonprofit focused on early care and education based in western North Carolina, was awarded $525,000 from the Division of Child Development and Early Education (DCDEE) from legislative pilot funding to expand access to family child care. The project’s expected output was to help 18 programs get started. Instead, it has helped launch 27 programs by awarding grants to cover start-up costs.
The grants ranged from $5,000 to $20,000 depending on the providers’ needs and the strategic goals of the project. The average grant was about $13,000.
Providers also spent their own money to open their programs outside of the grants. A survey of some of the providers found that most had spent between $1,000 and $5,000 before receiving grants to prepare their homes and buy materials.
The new providers are in 19 counties. In Alleghany and Montgomery counties, grant recipients will be the only family child care providers in their counties. Two providers speak Spanish fluently, according to the project leaders. At least 18 have college degrees. Four of the new providers were under 30 years old. Six were in their 30s; 10 were in their 40s.
“These are people that will be around for a while,” said Vickie Ansley, SWCDC’s Child Care Resource & Referral (CCR&R) regional programs manager and family child care in-home program activity coordinator.
Danielle Dixon wakes up students from nap time at Helen Cole’s Day Care. (Liz Bell/EducationNC)
That grant funding was layered onto a larger statewide family child care project the organization has been leading since February 2023 through a separate $3 million contract with DCDEE from the CCDF, the federal funding stream that helps states raise the quality of child care and helps working families afford it.
The statewide project had many components, including start-up grants of up to $10,000 and business grants of up to $5,000 for access to business training, software, or devices to manage programs. It provided 64 professional development workshops to providers on a range of issues. It also created a framework for family child care substitute pools and a database of zoning contacts and information.
Hands-on support from regional consultants
The crux of the project, however, was all about hands-on support and community building, the project leaders said. The project funded 17 family child care consultants who reached 477 providers in 73 counties with coaching and consultation.
The consultants, trained in the specifics of owning and operating a family child care program, were embedded in the 14 regional CCR&R hubs covering all 100 counties.
“We’re talking about people located in those communities,” Ansley said. “They know the (providers), or they know somebody who knows them.”
Helen Cole, a family child care provider in Taylortown, says the grants she received from Southwestern Child Development Commission helped her buy high-quality materials. (Liz Bell/EducationNC)
The PDG contract is in process but will be awarded to Acelero Charitable Foundation “in collaboration with multiple agencies that support family child care.” It will focus on increasing quality and family engagement, the spokesperson said.
DCDEE employs licensing consultants who meet with all types of potential child care owners to begin the licensure process. The licensing consultants began recommending reaching out to the regional family child care consultants to new providers.
The family child care consultants then could provide knowledge specific to family child care, dedicate time and energy to decipher the complexities of starting and sustaining a business, and offer support that was independent from regulatory oversight and compliance. Some of the consultants were former family child care providers themselves.
“Prior to that, if an agency had capacity, then they provided support,” Bates said. “The services were somewhat limited, whereas this was full 100% dedication for family child care.”
The regional consultants received business training to advise providers on budget planning, financial reports, marketing, and recruiting and retaining staff.
Kathleen Hoffler, a regional consultant at the Partnership for Children of Cumberland County who once owned a family child care home, described the role as her “dream job.”
Hoffler said she has helped providers take better care of their businesses, their children, and themselves. She encouraged providers to take time off and to reach out for help.
“If you’re having issues with enrollment, if you’re having issues with collecting payments from parents, if you’re having behavior issues with kids or you’re worried that one of your kids might need some developmental screening, and you don’t have anybody to talk that out with, it’s real easy to get discouraged and possibly decide it’s not for you and you’re going to close your program,” Hoffler said.
The family child care consultants connected providers to the pilot grant opportunities and helped them budget what they needed and how they should spend the funding.
Since the consultants were embedded in CCR&R agencies, they could connect providers with a variety of professional development opportunities and resources.
And they connected providers to mentors — seasoned family child care providers who provided a listening ear and advice on overcoming obstacles — and to communities of practice, regional teams that met to share ideas and support one another.
Annette Anderson-Samuels, owner of Phenomenal Kids Child Care Services, a family child care home in Kings Mountain, was one of those mentors. She said her advice to two new providers on how to advertise their programs kept them from closing. She recently helped a provider navigate a tough conversation with parents who were not following her policies.
“It’s to help each other become better at what we do as child care providers,” Anderson-Samuels said.
There were 22 mentors and 44 mentees across the state. In his decades working in early childhood, Bates said the group has been a standout.
“They’ve crossed county lines to go help each other in person,” he said. “The interest and the willingness, wanting to improve themselves, is really out there if they have the opportunity to do that.”
‘The lost segment of early childhood education’
The number of family child care programs, child care businesses within a residence, has fallen by about 36% since 2018, compared with an overall 15% decline in all types of licensed child care.
As a generation of providers age out of the work, a lack of awareness, funding, and support — along with increased regulation — has kept new providers from entering the field, project leaders said.
The team was intentional about listening to providers’ experiences and needs before developing a system of support.
Helen Cole said her family child care home has better equipment and provides higher-quality care because of the support she received from the Southwestern Child Development Commission’s family child care projects. (Liz Bell/EducationNC)
Many brought up the low rates that family child care providers receive per child to participate in the state’s subsidy program. These rates, the state has found, do not cover the full cost of providing child care in any setting. Home-based programs receive lower amounts per child than centers. And providers in rural and low-income areas often receive lower rates than those in higher-income counties.
In rural areas where market rates are lower, “even though we need family child care in those communities desperately, market rates are a hindrance,” said Lori Jones-Ruff, SWCDC’s regional programs manager.
Jones-Ruff also sits on Gov. Josh Stein’s Task Force on Child Care and Early Education, where members have discussed the need for higher subsidy rates and a statewide floor rate that would level the playing field among counties. Research has shown the geographic disparities are wider than place-based differences in cost.
“That’s not just a center issue,” she said. “It’s for family child care as well.”
Low funding from public sources and private tuition leads to low compensation for family child care professionals. The median wage for home-based providers in 2023 was $10.20.
The team also heard about obstacles due to HOA rules and zoning regulations. They found that local ordinances were putting up barriers to new programs in some places. Septic tank requirements were among the most common and most expensive problems.
“(Providers) have recognized, ‘I don’t really need to run to Raleigh; some of the challenges I have are really just in my own backyard, and I just need to talk to my town or county,’” Bates said.
The team heard about the isolation many providers feel, being alone in their homes all day without a network to air ideas or lean on when challenges arise. Providers said they did not feel respected or supported by the state.
“Historically, there was a huge emphasis put on center-based care in North Carolina,” Jones-Ruff said. “Homes did not feel that they were as valued and as supported as center-based. And so there was a period of time where they really felt like they were kind of the lost segment of early childhood education in North Carolina.”
So the team built a strategy based on both funding and relationships.
‘Like a prayer answered’
For Helen Cole, that assistance and funding was key to opening her family child care home in Taylortown in Moore County.
“I just feel like this wouldn’t have been possible without the support and the funds,” said Cole, who recently earned her four-star license to care for children from infancy to 12 years old at Helen Cole’s Day Care.
She received more than $17,000 to start her program from the legislative pilot funding. She bought new outside equipment, furniture, dramatic play sets, age-appropriate toys and books, a new kitchen faucet, a state-approved curriculum, and a new laptop.
Cole heard about the potential grant funding for start-up costs from the state licensing consultant. She was also connected with Hoffler.
Students at Helen Cole’s program work on their counting skills. (Liz Bell/EducationNC)
Cole was excited to open after hearing about a local demand for second-shift care. After retiring as a substitute teacher in her local school district, she needed more income and was eager to fill a community need.
But after her initial meeting with a licensing consultant, she received a long checklist of everything she had to do. She said she felt overwhelmed.
“It was just so much information,” she said. “There are things on the website, but how do you adjust it for your day care?”
Plus, Cole had experience helping in her sister’s child care program, but she did not know the ins and outs of operating a small business. Even with a background in accounting, she knew the role would be challenging. So she reached out to Hoffler for an in-person meeting.
“It was like a prayer answered,” Cole said. “She broke it down for me.”
Hoffler helped Cole navigate the tough decisions that come with operating a business from your home, such as how much living space she was willing to sacrifice and what renovations were needed. And she helped Cole create a budget to apply for grant funding through the legislative pilot. She gave her ideas on high-quality and age-appropriate materials.
She also connected Cole with a mentor, helped her with business skills, and connected her with other resources through the Smart Start partnership.
Hoffler has helped her advertise her program and hold on through the ups and downs of enrollment, Cole said. Because she needed to hire another teacher, her niece Danielle Dixon, Cole said she is breaking even but has not started making a profit or been able to pay herself. She said she has been advised that it can take nine months to a year.
She said low subsidy rates and parents’ inability to afford her private rates have also been financially challenging. She serves one student whose parents are both working, making too much to qualify for a subsidy, but cannot afford her private rate of $200 per week. She only charges that family $85 per week.
Danielle Dixon, a teacher at Helen Cole’s Day Care, has worked in child care for 11 years. (Liz Bell/EducationNC)
Dixon, who has been working in child care professionally for 11 years but informally since she was 16 years old, has both of her children enrolled at the program. Dixon said her grandmother and mother, as well as three of her aunts, have worked in child care. She decided to partner with her aunt, Cole, to return to working with young children in a creative, exploratory environment after working in public schools.
Helen Cole’s Day Care opened in December in the home she was raised in, and where her mother used to take care of children whose parents were at risk of losing custody.
“All of our lives, we’ve had other children here,” Cole said.
Both Dixon and Hoffler have helped Cole strengthen her understanding and practice of early childhood care and education. Her program’s philosophy is based on relationships, exploration, and emotional and social development. Then academic foundations are added.
“It’s that give and take between you and this child,” Hoffler said. “They’re going to learn more from you if you are actively engaging with them and talking to them throughout the day, than they’ll ever learn if you give them a coloring sheet and try to teach them how to stay in the lines. There are no lines in early childhood.”
“That was a wow moment,” Cole said. “I understand that we have to have a curriculum, and we do, but the biggest thing is for them to develop on their own.”
It is this one-on-one attention and intimate environment that make family child care appeal to so many parents. Rural children, low-income children, and children of color are more likely to access home-based care than center-based, according to national advocacy and research group Home Grown. It is often more affordable, more convenient and flexible for nontraditional working hours, and more culturally and linguistically relevant to diverse families.
Inside Helen Cole’s child care program. (Liz Bell/EducationNC)
Kailyn Green, whose daughter has been at the program for a month, said she toured other programs with open spots but they “didn’t feel right.” Then she visited Cole’s program and did a walk-through.
“I was like, ‘I’m sold. I’m good,’” Green said.
A licensed clinical social worker, Green said she has been able to return to work without worrying. She receives texts and videos of her daughter’s days and has been impressed by how much she has progressed, especially with eating more consistently.
“I love that she truly gets the attention,” she said. “She’s been able to form a relationship with her. It’s been great.”
Hoffler said she was excited to hear about Cole’s recent accomplishment: earning four out of five stars on the state’s quality rating scale.
“I’m just so proud of her,” she said. “She handled it like a pro.”
What’s next?
There are multiple efforts to build different kinds of supports for family child care. DCDEE said the project with SWCDC taught them that “Family Child Care Homes (FCCHs) would benefit from additional funding, continued community engagement, and professional development to improve quality,” according to a DCDEE spokesperson.
“FCCHs are a vital part of our state’s early care and learning network, and DCDEE is committed to continuing our support for these small businesses,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
Though the contract for the statewide project ends on June 30, the spokesperson said the division will continue using CCDF funds and federal funds from the Preschool Development Grant (PDG) Birth through Five to provide business technical assistance and other services to family child care programs.
The PDG contract is in process but will be awarded to Acelero Charitable Foundation “in collaboration with multiple agencies that support family child care.” It will focus on increasing quality and family engagement, the spokesperson said.
DCDEE is also contracting with Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at UNC-Chapel Hill to provide evaluation and coordination of the PDG Elevate FCCH project, which will provide extra subsidy funding to family child care programs to increase wages for providers.
The House and Senate budget proposals direct DCDEE to use CCDF funds to expand family child care capacity. The House would allocate $7 million over two years for a pilot in three localities, and the Senate would allocate $6 million for a pilot in Alamance, Harnett, and Johnston counties. The funding would go to councils of governments in each of those counties to select a third-party vendor. Both proposals have specific requirements for the chosen vendor, including experience in establishing family child care homes in at least three other states and rural areas, experience in operating a substitute pool in another state, and technology that connects families with providers and includes billing and coaching functions.
Meanwhile, Jones-Ruff said SWCDC will continue supporting family child care by retaining a statewide team with organizational funding — and will seek outside funding to continue other aspects of the project. Some of the family child care consultants will continue their work through local CCR&R or Smart Start funding.
“I can see just the monumental amount of work and the progress that has happened in such a short amount of time,” she said. “We’re not going away.”
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Prior research shows attendance is one of the best predictors of class grades and student outcomes, creating a strong argument for faculty to incentivize or require attendance.
Attaching grades to attendance, however, can create its own challenges, because many students generally want more flexibility in their schedules and think they should be assessed on what they learn—not how often they show up. A student columnist at the University of Washington expressed frustration at receiving a 20 percent weighted participation grade, which the professor graded based on exit tickets students submitted at the end of class.
“Our grades should be based on our understanding of the material, not whether or not we were in the room,” Sophie Sanjani wrote in The Daily, UW’s student paper.
Keenan Hartert, a biology professor at Minnesota State University, Mankato, set out to understand the factors affecting students’ performance in his own course and found that attendance was one of the strongest predictors of their success.
His finding wasn’t an aha moment, but reaffirmed his position that attendance is an early indicator of GPA and class community building. The challenge, he said, is how to apply such principles to an increasingly diverse student body, many of whom juggle work, caregiving responsibilities and their own personal struggles.
“We definitely have different students than the ones I went to school with,” Hartert said. “We do try to be the most flexible, because we have a lot of students that have a lot of other things going on that they can’t tell us. We want to be there for them.”
Who’s missing class? It’s not uncommon for a student to miss class for illness or an outside conflict, but higher rates of absence among college students in recent years are giving professors pause.
An analysis of 1.1 million students across 22 major research institutions found that the number of hours students have spent attending class, discussion sections and labs declined dramatically from the 2018–19 academic year to 2022–23, according to the Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) Consortium.
More than 30 percent of students who attended community college in person skipped class sometimes in the past year, a 2023 study found; 4 percent said they skipped class often or very often.
Students say they opt out of class for a variety of reasons, including lack of motivation, competing priorities and external challenges. A professor at Colorado State University surveyed 175 of his students in 2023 and found that 37 percent said they regularly did not attend class because of physical illness, mental health concerns, a lack of interest or engagement, or simply because it wasn’t a requirement.
A 2024 survey from Trellis Strategies found that 15 percent of students missed class sometimes due to a lack of reliable transportation. Among working students, one in four said they regularly missed class due to conflicts with their work schedule.
High rates of anxiety and depression among college students may also impact their attendance. More than half of 817 students surveyed by Harmony Healthcare IT in 2024 said they’d skipped class due to mental health struggles; one-third of respondents indicated they’d failed a test because of negative mental health.
A case study: MSU Mankato’s Hartert collected data on about 250 students who enrolled in his 200-level genetics course over several semesters.
Using an end-of-term survey, class activities and his own grade book information, Hartert collected data measuring student stress, hours slept, hours worked, number of office hours attended, class attendance and quiz grades, among other metrics.
Mapping out the various factors, Hartert’s case study modeled other findings in student success literature: a high number of hours worked correlated negatively with the student’s course grade, while attendance in class and at review sessions correlated positively with academic outcomes.
Data analysis by Keenan Hartert, a biology professor at Minnesota State University, Mankato, found student employment negatively correlated with their overall class grade.
Keenan Hartert
The data also revealed to Hartert some of the challenges students face while enrolled. “It was brutal to see how many students [were working full-time]. Just seeing how many were [working] over 20 [hours] and how many were over 30 or 40, it was different.”
Nationally, two-thirds of college students work for pay while enrolled, and 43 percent of employed students work full-time, according to fall 2024 data from Trellis Strategies.
Hartert also asked students if they had any financial resources to support them in case of emergency; 28 percent said they had no fallback. Of those students, 90 percent were working more than 20 hours per week.
Data analysis of student surveys show students who are working are less likely to have financial resources to support them in an emergency.
The findings illustrated to him the challenges many students face in managing their job shifts while trying to meet attendance requirements.
A Faculty Aside
While some faculty may be less interested in using predictive analytics for their own classes, Hartert found tracking factors like how often a student attends office hours was beneficial to helping him achieve his own career goals, because he could include those measurements in his tenure review.
An interpersonal dynamic: A less measured factor in the attendance debate is not a student’s own learning, but the classroom environment they contribute to. Hartert framed it as students motivating their peers unknowingly. “The people that you may not know that sit around you and see you, if you’re gone, they may think, ‘Well, they gave up, why should I keep trying?’ Even if they’ve never spoken to you.”
One professor at the University of Oregon found that peer engagement positively correlated with academic outcomes. Raghuveer Parthasarathy restructured his general education physics course to promote engagement by creating an “active zone,” or a designated seating area in the classroom where students sat if they wanted to participate in class discussions and other active learning conversations.
Compared to other sections of the course, the class was more engaged across the board, even among those who didn’t opt to sit in the participation zone. Additionally, students who sat in the active zone were more likely to earn higher grades on exams and in the course over all.
Attending class can also create connections between students and professors, something students say they want and expect.
A May 2024 student survey by Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab found that 35 percent of respondents think their academic success would be most improved by professors getting to know them better. In a separate question, 55 percent of respondents said they think professors are at least partly responsible for becoming a mentor.
The SERU Consortium found student respondents in 2023 were less likely to say a professor knew or had learned their name compared to their peers in 2013. Students were also less confident that they knew a professor well enough to ask for a letter of recommendation for a job or graduate school.
“You have to show up to class then, so I know who you are,” Hartert said.
Meeting in the middle: To encourage attendance, Hartert employs active learning methods such as creative writing or case studies, which help demonstrate the value of class participation. His favorite is a jury scenario, in which students put their medical expertise into practice with criminal cases. “I really try and get them in some gray-area stuff and remind them, just because it’s a big textbook doesn’t mean that you can’t have some creative, fun ideas,” Hartert said.
For those who can’t make it, all of Hartert’s lectures are recorded and available online to watch later. Recording lectures, he said, “was a really hard bridge to cross, post-COVID. I was like, ‘Nobody’s going to show up.’ But every time I looked at the data [for] who was looking at the recording, it’s all my top students.” That was reason enough for him to leave the recordings available as additional practice and resources.
Students who can’t make an in-person class session can receive attendance credit by sending Hartert their notes and answers to any questions asked live during the class, proving they watched the recording.
Hartert has also made adjustments to how he uses class time to create more avenues for working students to engage. His genetics course includes a three-hour lab section, which rarely lasts the full time, Hartert said. Now, the final hour of the lab is a dedicated review session facilitated by peer leaders, who use practice questions Hartert designed. Initial data shows working students who stayed for the review section of labs were more likely to perform better on their exams.
“The good news is when it works out, like when we can make some adjustments, then we can figure our way through,” Hartert said. “But the reality of life is that time marches on and things happen, and you gotta choose a couple priorities.”
Do you have an academic intervention that might help others improve student success? Tell us about it.
University governing boards are the black boxes of higher ed. As with marriages, the only people who know what they’re really like are the ones in the relationship. Sometimes not even them.
Like most faculty members, I knew almost nothing about the Board of Trustees at my regional public university, other than hearing my colleagues rail against their hiring decisions. In my nearly two decades on the faculty, we’ve had six presidents. That should tell you something.
After a no-confidence vote in a previous president, the board held a public Zoom session where faculty, students and community members gave them hell. I watched, embarrassed. At the board’s request for further comment, I wrote a letter explaining from my limited perspective how things had gotten so bad.
The next day, a trustee emailed to thank me and asked if I’d be willing to talk. I was. I knew some of my colleagues had go-out-drinking relationships with board members. I have never been cool, so I was, of course, flattered. (Frailty, thy name is Rachel.)
The trustee asked if there were other faculty members they could contact. I gave names. We kept in touch. Eventually, the board fired the president and hired someone new. The trustee would occasionally reach out. We’d talk about campus issues—but also books and dogs. Our conversations made me feel seen and valued—a rarity for me.
Only when I began writing a weekly newsletter for Inside Higher Ed, having confidential and off-the-record conversations with sitting presidents, did I realize that my friendly back channel might not have been entirely kosher. Recently, I finally looked at our board’s bylaws. They said, essentially, that trustees aren’t supposed to go around the president to make requests of university employees.
Oops.
That rule is there for a good reason. While it is theoretically great for trustees to be more knowledgeable about the institutions on whose boards they serve, their main functions are fiduciary and to hire and (increasingly often) fire the president, who is responsible in turn for educating them. Most faculty and staff will have plenty to say if asked (I sure did) but will have only a limited perspective on the administrative realities (which never stops us from opining). And some board members, like some of us faculty, just like to stir up shit.
That was not the case with the trustee at my university, who loved the institution, was smart and caring, and wanted only to understand and help make things better. But the reason for bylaws is because not everyone acts honorably. Or is even informed. One thing I’ve learned: Many board members (and some presidents) don’t pay much attention to those pesky board documents. And they’re rarely updated. I just heard from a current president that when he came into the job, the bylaws stated that documents were to be sent electronically. By telegram!
In the last two years, I’ve heard plenty of stories about good relationships between presidents and helpful boards working together to lead all sorts of different types of institutions. Those tales are happily dull.
Frequently, though, I’ve heard horror stories about board behavior. Trustees reliving their frat years, getting hammered and passing out on the president’s couch. Grabbing butts and commenting on legs. Weighing in on clothing and jewelry choices. But not all offenses are so blatant. More often, presidents tell me about covert alliances between trustees and executive team members who want to undermine the president—and get away with it because of personal relationships. Or the board members who go around the president to talk to faculty (um, right).
I have come to believe that many of the problems in higher ed are a result of the fact that there’s no real oversight of trustees, and often not even a shared understanding of what they’re supposed to be doing. There are associations and consultants, but the institutions that seek them out are the ones who already know they need help, and only because things are seriously messed up. Most “training” happens after everything goes pear-shaped and someone with a title and willingness to spend some coin brings in the consultants.
You’d think leaders would recognize a dysfunctional board. But as one of those consultants likes to say, when you’ve seen one board, you’ve seen one board. Many presidents don’t realize they are in an abusive relationship until they move on (by their own choice, or not) and realize that the next board isn’t like the last. That’s when it hits: Oh. That wasn’t normal.
Boards sometimes bring in a president to shake things up or solve a big problem (there’s no money in the budget). But when a place is used to doing things a certain way—especially if there’s been a long-serving president—the new person often ends up being blamed for making everyone feel uncomfortable. When trustees start hearing complaints from their golf buddies about how their alma mater is “changing too much” or faculty vote no confidence, guess who takes the hit?
Some say big boards are better—fewer people means fewer checks on the loudest voices. Most trustees are used to being in charge and seeing quick results. Higher ed doesn’t work that way. And we haven’t even started talking about shared governance. (That’s a whole other can of night crawlers.)
Presidents have to walk a fine line: Give the board enough information to fulfill their duties without overwhelming them. Some create board books of many hundreds of pages and hope no one reads too closely. Others spoon-feed just what’s needed so they can take advantage of the real expertise and wisdom of the board members. Good trustees are curious and thoughtful. But not all of them got the memo that this is a governing role, not a management one. (Same is true for shared governance.)
As with faculty development, those who are eager to get better at their jobs attend learning sessions and those who most need training rarely show up. The bullies call themselves “critical thinkers.” A former president–turned–consultant told me that in the old days, other board members would call out bad behavior. Now, she says, when the flamethrowers show up, everyone else suddenly finds their phones fascinating.
Good trustees know their role. One I’ve spoken to told his president, “If I ever feel like I’m running the place, I know it’s time to find a new president.” That’s what a good marriage sounds like—mutual trust, healthy boundaries, a sense of being on the same team without Monday-morning quarterbacking.
But like all relationships, presidencies can sour. Many presidents have had great relationships with strong, supportive board chairs. But then the chair rotates. Or a new crop of trustees arrives. Suddenly, everything changes. And there’s no way to explain what happened—only that it did.
That’s when we see the press release that says the president “resigned abruptly.” The board thanks them for their service, announces an interim and closes the door behind them. In a few recent cases, the interim is the board chair, who then takes over as president.
Which is why seasoned presidents negotiate their contracts like they’re signing a prenup. Because as with any marriage, you want to believe it’s forever—but you’d be wise to plan for the day one of you decides to walk away.
Rachel Toor is a contributing editor at Inside Higher Ed, where she writes and edits the Insider membership newsletter The Sandbox.
Shalini Randeria, president and rector of the Central European University, has warned that the Trump administration is working from the “playbook” of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, describing the legal uncertainty faced by U.S. universities as the government’s “intended outcome.”
Now based in Vienna, CEU was forced out of Budapest after Orbán’s Fidesz government implemented a series of legal measures in 2017, which the European Court of Justice later ruled were “incompatible with E.U. law.”
The 2020 ruling came too late for CEU, however, which had relocated to Austria the previous year. “That’s one of the problems of using law courts to stop the machinations of soft authoritarian regimes,” Randeria told Times Higher Education. “Courts are slow and unpredictable, even though we had a very strong case.”
“There was a lot of legal uncertainty created by Orbán, and this is exactly the same playbook which is being used by the Trump administration,” she said, pointing to the court battle between Harvard University and the government as an example.
“They introduce a flurry of laws and administrative measures that universities can then go to court against. It’s unclear what will happen at the end, and this chaos and unpredictability is really the intended outcome.”
Randeria described legal uncertainty as particularly problematic for organizations that work on “long-term cycles,” such as universities. “It makes any rational decision-making, any financial planning or academic planning, impossible,” she said.
“When we admit students now, we admit them to complete a four-year degree, or a two-year master’s, or a doctoral degree in five or six years. We are thinking and planning way ahead,” she said. “If you don’t know what the legal status of your institution will be in two years, you cannot in good faith advertise to and recruit students.”
Attracting faculty, too, requires long-term certainty, Randeria continued: “When you have this sword of Damocles hanging over your head, not knowing whether you’ll be able to run the university efficiently and fairly on a consistent basis, it’s very, very difficult to recruit faculty.”
After the “traumatic period” of forced relocation, CEU has “performed really well academically,” Randeria said, securing “competitive research funding both within Austria and, as usual, within Europe.”
Obtaining consortium grants, such as those awarded by the Austrian Science Fund, has “allowed us to anchor ourselves in Austria, not in competition with the very vibrant academic scene here and its research institutions and universities, but in partnership with them.” The university did not lose any faculty in the move, she noted, and “recruitment and admission numbers didn’t fall.”
Nevertheless, Orbán’s pursuit of the CEU—part of a larger campaign against its philanthropist founder, George Soros—has yet to run its course, Randeria said. Fidesz’s proposed “national sovereignty” law, which would allow the government to penalize or shut down organizations receiving “foreign funding,” “could be used against CEU’s continuing activities” in Budapest, she warned, namely, research conducted at the CEU Democracy Institute.
U.S. vice president JD Vance has expressed explicit admiration for Orbán’s higher education policy, calling his approach, which has also seen control of state universities transferred to government-aligned foundations, “the closest that conservatives have ever gotten to successfully dealing with left-wing domination of universities.”
“What right-wing populists all over have done is stamp universities as ivory towers of elite privilege, and this is not true,” Randeria said. In response, “we need to mobilize public support on a very large scale.”
“As institutions, we need to put a lot more focus on outreach and communication,” she told THE, with the goal of ensuring the public “really understand what universities do, and why they are the backbone of a functioning liberal democracy.”
U.S. universities must “not let themselves be divided one against the other,” Randeria advised. “I don’t think you can protect yourself as an institution on your own. It has to be a collective resistance against this kind of intervention into university autonomy and academic freedom.”
“One should be prepared for some very, very strong institutional solidarity of universities across the board.”
Before a federal judge blocked its plans, the Education Department reached a deal with the Department of Labor to hand over some of its career, technical and adult education grants, according to court records.
Under the agreement, reached May 21, the Labor Department would administer about $2.7 billion in grants, including the Perkins Grant program, which funds career and technical education at K–12 schools and community colleges, Politicofirst reported. But that plan is now on hold, as is an agreement with the Treasury Department regarding student loan collections, according to a status update in New York’s lawsuit challenging mass layoffs at the agency and President Donald Trump’s executive order to dismantle the department.
The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to overturn the lower court’s injunction so officials can proceed with the layoffs and other plans.
The department didn’t publicly announce the handover, which appears to be a first step toward Trump’s endgame of shutting down the agency. Education Secretary Linda McMahon has acknowledgedrepeatedly that only Congress can legally shutter the department, but she’s also made clear that she can transfer some responsibilities to other agencies. In addition to administering the funds, Labor officials agreed to oversee the implementation of career education programs and to monitor grant recipients for compliance.
Advance CTE and the Association for Career and Technical Education criticized the plan, saying the agreement “directly circumvents existing statutory requirements” related to the Perkins program and would cause confusion.
“We strongly oppose any efforts to move CTE administration away from the U.S. Department of Education given the disruption this would cause to the legislation’s implementation and services to students in schools across the country,” they said in a statement released Wednesday evening.
A judge released a Harvard Medical School research associate and Russian native Thursday. She had been held in federal detention for nearly four months after she tried to re-enter the U.S.
Kseniia Petrova still faces a criminal charge for allegedly trying to smuggle frog embryos into the country through Boston’s Logan International Airport, where Customs and Border Protection detained her, but she’s been freed for now.
“I hear it’s sunny. Goodbye,” U.S. magistrate judge Judith G. Dein said after approving Petrova’s release, the Associated Press reported.
The AP wrote that Petrova, standing outside the John Joseph Moakley U.S. Courthouse in Boston, thanked her supporters, saying, “I never really felt alone any minute when I was in custody, and it’s really helped me very much.”
The court set a probable cause hearing in the case for next Wednesday.
Despite being detained Feb. 16 and transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in Louisiana, it wasn’t until mid-May that prosecutors announced the smuggling charge. One of her lawyers, Gregory Romanovsky, has said that Petrova “was suddenly transferred from ICE to criminal custody” less than two hours after a judge set a hearing on her release.
On May 28, a U.S. District Court of Vermont judge said that Petrova’s immigration detention was unjustified and granted bail, but that didn’t immediately lead to her release, NBC News reported.
“It’s difficult to understand why someone like Kseniia needed to be jailed for four months,” Romanovsky said. “She poses no danger and has deep ties to her community. Her case is a reminder that immigration enforcement should be guided by law and common sense—and not deportation quotas.”
President Trump said that Chinese international students would be welcome in the U.S. in a post on Truth Social on Wednesday announcing the terms of a pending trade agreement with China.
In exchange for shipments of rare earth metals, the U.S. “WILL PROVIDE TO CHINA WHAT WAS AGREED TO, INCLUDING CHINESE STUDENTS USING OUR COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES (WHICH HAS ALWAYS BEEN GOOD WITH ME!),” Trump posted (capital letters his).
The about-face comes less than two weeks after Secretary of State Marco Rubio promised to “aggressively revoke” Chinese students’ visas and implement a much stricter review process for nonimmigrant visa applications from the country.
That announcement, an escalation of the Trump administration’s campaign to decrease the number of foreign students at American universities, threw higher education into a panic. International enrollment has become a financial lifeline for many institutions, and Chinese students make up nearly a quarter of all international students in the U.S.—around 280,000 in 2023–24, according to the Institute of International Education, more than students from any other country. They make up 16 percent of graduate STEM programs and 2 percent of undergraduate programs.
Rubio’s visa-revocation announcement also led to distress among Chinese families, whose hopes of sending their children to a prestigious American university seemed to be fading. In May, the Chinese foreign minister called the policy “politically discriminatory” and “irrational.”
Students will soon have to show a government-approved ID either in person or online in order to receive federal aid.
Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | michaeljung and robas/iStock/Getty Images
College financial aid offices and students’ advocates say that a Trump administration plan to crack down on fraud in the federal aid system could burden university staff and hinder access to college programs.
Although they support fighting fraud as a concept, they particularly worry that real, eligible Pell Grant recipients will get caught up in the detection system and won’t be able to jump through the extra hoops to verify their identity.
“In general, verification is a little bit of threading the needle between making sure that the right dollars are going to the right students, but also not putting up an inordinate number of barriers, particularly to low-income students, that are insurmountable,” said Karen McCarthy, vice president of public policy and federal relations at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. “You have to walk a fine line between those two things.”
Department of Education officials, however, say their plan, announced June 9, is necessary to protect American taxpayers from theft and won’t become a burden for colleges. They aren’t worried about students losing access, either.
Ultimately, the Trump administration plans to verify the identity of each financial aid applicant with the help of a new system that should be up and running “this fall,” according to the department’s announcement. Before then, the department is planning to screen more first-time applicants for verification—a process that could affect 125,000 students this summer and will be handled by financial aid offices. (About 40,000 students were checked last year, according to a department spokesperson.)
McCarthy, however, is concerned that if the new system isn’t ready by the fall, “institutions will be assuming this larger burden for a longer, indeterminate amount of time.” The department’s botched launch of the 2024–25 Free Application for Federal Student Aid showed the challenges of standing up new systems quickly, she noted.
A senior official at the Department of Education told Inside Higher Ed that the Office of Federal Student Aid and the department procurement team are in the process of purchasing an identity-validation product similar to the ones used by financial services companies like banks. The product would be incorporated into the online FAFSA portal.
If an individual is flagged for potential fraud at any point while filling out the form, a pop-up box would appear with a live staff member on the other side, the official explained. The applicant would then be asked to display a government-issued ID. If that ID is deemed valid, the person could then continue.
“Once that’s done, the process is over,” the official said. “That’s really as simple as that effort is. I believe rental car companies are using it, too.”
The official was optimistic that the department could have the system up and running by early September, though that won’t be soon enough to get aid disbursed in time for the fall semester. The official also acknowledged that the timeline means that colleges may have to do some verification in person even in the fall, but that process should not be too much of a burden for the college or the student. Similar to the online process, a student would just need to show a valid ID to a college financial aid administrator, either in person or over a video call. Previously, when identity verifications were conducted, students had to present a Statement of Educational Purpose and submit a notarized copy of their identification document.
But advocacy groups that work with low-income students worry that even requiring a government-issued ID could give some students a leg up over others when it comes to accessing financial aid and affording to enroll in college.
“We want to see fraud eliminated as much as anyone else … We just need to make sure that gets balanced with a reasonable process for students,” said MorraLee Keller, a senior consultant for the National College Attainment Network. “A lot of low-economic kids may not have secured, for example, a driver’s license. If they don’t drive, they may not have a driver’s license, and that is probably the primary form of a government-issued valid ID that most people would be able to present.”
Keller noted that some states may have alternate IDs available for those who do not drive, but even that may take time to obtain if a student doesn’t already possess it.
“We want to make sure that timing doesn’t interrupt the aid getting credited to their account to pay their bills on time so that they could start classes, get refunds to go get their books and all those kinds of things,” she said. “So one of the questions that we still need answered is, what else would be considered a valid ID?”
The California Community College system, which has grappled with increasing financial aid fraud, recently considered an application fee to help screen legitimate students from fraudsters. A spokesperson for the system said they are waiting on additional guidance from the department before they can know how big a deal this shift will be.
“We wouldn’t be able to speculate on the level of concern among students and institutions until the federal guidance is known,” she wrote. But “financial aid fraud is a nationwide trend and additional identification verification processes will help in the fight against it.”
