Tag: News

  • Agentic AI Invading the LMS and Other Things We Should Know

    Agentic AI Invading the LMS and Other Things We Should Know

    Over the past 18 months, I’ve been spending the majority of my time writing and speaking about how I think we can and should continue to teach writing even as we have this technology that is capable of generating synthetic text. While my values regarding this issue are unshakable, the world undeniably changes around me, which requires an ongoing vigilance regarding the capabilities of this technology.

    But like most people, I don’t have unlimited time to stay on top of these things. One of my recommendations in More Than Words for navigating these challenges is to “find your guides,” the people who are keeping an eye on aspects of the issue that you can trust.

    One of my guides for the entirety of this period is Marc Watkins, someone who is engaged with staying on top of the latest implications of how the technology and the way students are using it is evolving.

    I thought it might be helpful to others to share the questions I wanted to ask Marc for my own edification.

    Marc Watkins directs the AI Institute for Teachers and is an assistant director of academic innovation at the University of Mississippi, where he is a lecturer in writing and rhetoric. When training faculty in applied artificial intelligence, he believes educators should be equally supported if they choose to work with AI or include friction to curb AI’s influence on student learning. He regularly writes about AI and education on his Substack, Rhetorica.

    Q: One of the things I most appreciate about the work you’re doing in thinking about the intersection of education and generative AI is that you actively engage with the technology using a lens to ask what a particular tool may mean for students and classes. I appreciate it because my personal interest in using these things beyond keeping sufficiently, generally familiar is limited, and I know that we share similar values at the core of the work of reading and writing. So, my first question is for those of us who aren’t putting these things through their paces: What’s the state of things? What do you think instructors should, specifically, know about the capacities of gen AI tools?

    A: Thanks, John! I think we’re of the same mind when it comes to values and AI. By that, I mean we both see human agency and will as key moving forward in education and in society. Part of my life right now is talking to lots of different groups about AI updates. I visit with faculty, administration, researchers, even quite a few folks outside of academia. It’s exhausting just to keep up and nearly impossible to take stock.

    We now have agentic AI that completes tasks using your computer for you; multimodal AI that can see and interact with you using a computer voice; machine reasoning models that take simple prompts and run them in loops repeatedly to guess what a sophisticated response might look like; browser-based AI that can scan any webpage and perform tasks for you. I’m not sure students are aware of any of what AI can do beyond interfaces like ChatGPT. The best thing any instructor can do is have a conversation with students to ask them if they are using AI and gauge how it is impacting their learning.

    Q: I want to dig into the AI “agents” a bit more. You had a recent post on this, as did Anna Mills, and I think it’s important for folks to know that these companies are purposefully developing and selling technology that can go into a Canvas course and start doing “work.” What are we to make of this in terms of how we think about designing courses?

    A: I think online assessment is generally broken at this point and won’t be saved. But online learning still has a chance and is something we should fight for. For all of its many flaws, online education has given people a valid pathway to a version of college education that they might not have been able to afford otherwise. There’s too many issues with equity and access to completely remove online from higher education, but that doesn’t mean we cannot radically think what it means to learn in online spaces. For instance, you can assign your students a process notebook in an online course that involves them writing by hand with pen and paper, then take a photograph or scan it and upload it. The [optical character recognition] function within many of the foundation models will be able to transcribe most handwriting into legible text. We can and should look for ways to give our students embodied experiences within disembodied spaces.

    Q: In her newsletter, Anna Mills calls on AI companies to collaborate on keeping students from deploying these agents in service of doing all their work for them. I’m skeptical that there’s any chance of this happening. I see an industry that seems happy to steamroll instructors, institutions and even students. Am I too cynical? Is there space for collaboration?

    A: There’s space for collaboration for sure, and limiting some of the more egregious use cases, but we also have to be realistic about what’s happening here. AI developers are moving fast and breaking things with each deployment or update, and we should be deeply skeptical when they come around to offer to sweep up the pieces, lest we forget how they became broken in the first place.

    Q: I’m curious if the development of the technology tracks what you would have figured a year or even longer, 18 months ago. How fast do you think this stuff is moving in terms of its capacities as they relate to school and learning? What do you see on the horizon?

    A: The problem we’re seeing is one of uncritical adoption, hype and acceleration. AI labs create a new feature or use case and deploy it within a few days for free or low cost, and industry has suddenly adopted this technique to bring the latest up-to-date AI features to enterprise products. What this means is the none-AI applications we’ve used for years suddenly get AI integrated into it, or if it has an AI feature, sees it rapidly updated.

    Most of these AI updates aren’t tested enough to be trusted outside of human in the loop assistance. Doing otherwise makes us all beta testers. It’s creating “work slop,” where companies are seeing employees using AI uncritically to often save time and produce error-laden work that then takes time and resources to address. Compounding things even more, it increasingly looks like the venture capital feeding AI development is one of the prime reasons our economy isn’t slipping into recession. Students and faculty find themselves at ground zero for most of this, as education looks like one of the major industries being impacted by AI.

    Q: One of the questions I often get when I’m working with faculty on campuses is what I think AI “literacy” looks like, and while I have my share of thoughts, I tend to pivot back to my core message, which is that I’m more worried about helping students develop their human capacities than teaching them how to work with AI. But let me ask you, what does AI literacy look like?

    A: I think AI literacy really isn’t about using AI. For me, I define AI literacy as learning how the technology works and understanding its impact on society. Using that definition, I think we can and should integrate aspects of AI literacy throughout our teaching. The working-with-AI-responsibly part, what I’d call AI fluency, has its place in certain classes and disciplines but needs to go hand in hand with AI literacy; otherwise, you risk uncritically adopting a technology with little understanding or demystifying AI and helping students understand its impact on our world.

    Q: Whenever I make a campus visit, I try to have a chance to talk to students about their AI use, and for the most part I see a lot of critical thinking about it, where students recognize many of the risks of outsourcing all of their work, but also share that within the system they’re operating in, it sometimes makes sense to use it. This has made me think that ultimately, our only response can be to treat the demand side of the equation. We’re not going to be able to police this stuff. The tech companies aren’t going to help. It’s on the students to make the choices that are most beneficial to their own lives. Of course, this has always been the case with our growth and development. What do you think we should be focused on in managing these challenges?

    A: My current thinking is we should teach students discernment when it comes to AI tools and likely ourselves, too. There’s no rule book or priors for us to call upon when we deal with a machine that mimics human intelligence. My approach is radical honesty with students and faculty. By that I mean the following: I cannot police your behavior here and no one else is going to do that, either. It is up to all of us to form a social contract and find common agreement about where this technology belongs in our lives and create clear boundaries where it does not.

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  • First-Gen Students More Likely to Drop Out Due to Low GPA

    First-Gen Students More Likely to Drop Out Due to Low GPA

    First-generation students make up half of all undergraduates, but only one quarter of them retain and graduate with a degree.

    A recent study from the National Bureau of Economic Research analyzed first-generation student data against that of their continuing-generation peers to identify gaps in the classroom that may be hindering their success. Researchers found that first-generation students who received lower-than-expected grades in their first term were more likely to leave college entirely compared to their peers who also underperformed but utilized other pathways to continue in higher education.

    The findings point to a need for additional support resources to help first-generation students understand academic recovery opportunities—including course withdrawal and switching majors—to promote persistence to graduation.

    Digging into data: The study relies on transcript data from 145,000 first-year students at Arizona State University from 2000 to 2022, as well as survey data fielded during the 2021–22 academic year.

    Researchers found that parental education is a significant predictor of a student’s academic success, even when controlling for a variety of characteristics, including demographics, household income, major choice and early college performance.

    One distinguishing factor between continuing and first-generation students was their use of academic policies to protect their grades. First-generation students were less likely to change their majors or withdraw from courses, strategies that some students deploy to save their GPAs. They were also less likely to know their peers or turn to family members for support when faced with academic challenges, researchers wrote.

    “First-generation students who encounter negative grade events have about a 40 percent likelihood of dropping out, which is around five percentage points higher than observationally identical continuing generation students who face the same academic setback,” according to the study. “Rather than dropping out, we find that continuing-generation students who face academic difficulties in their first year are more likely to switch majors.”

    Researchers surveyed students to understand how their academic perceptions and outcomes could influence their retention. Results showed that first-generation students were more likely to consider poor grades as detrimental to their success or a signal of their academic failure, which might push them to drop out.

    One example of this was the decision to switch majors. While all students were more likely to switch majors if their first semester grades fell below a 3.0 GPA, continuing-generation students were much more likely to switch their major because of lower grades; first-generation students were more inclined to remain in their major even with poor grades.

    Researchers hypothesized that first-gen students may be less likely to switch majors because they have a less differentiated perspective on major earnings, meaning they expect similar earnings after graduating college regardless of their major. Therefore, poor grades in one major would mean poor outcomes in all fields—not just that particular program.

    Survey Says

    A 2025 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab found that 55 percent of first-generation students said one of their top reasons for deciding to attend college was to pursue a specific career or profession.

    First-generation students were slightly more likely to say they enrolled to increase their earning potential or to achieve a personal goal, compared to their continuing-generation peers.

    One solution: As part of the study, researchers evaluated Arizona State University LEAD (Learn Explore Advance Design), a program that supports incoming students with lower grades or test scores. LEAD participants complete special first-year courses that focus on durable skills including time management and offer smaller class sizes and more interaction with faculty. The program also has dedicated staff and peer mentors who support incoming students.

    Data shows the program effectively helped students learn to navigate the university; participants had a slightly higher GPA and reported a greater sense of belonging and positive mental health. LEAD students were also more likely to switch majors and less likely to declare an undecided major, signaling to researchers that the program improved students’ cultural capital and flow of information.

    Related Research: First-generation students can be left behind in the classroom because they’re unaware of the “hidden curriculum,” or unspoken norms and processes involved in navigating higher education.

    Similarly, one research project found that first-generation students were less aware of conduct systems and how to interpret the student handbook, which could result in disproportionate disciplinary action.

    Read more here.

    How does your college help first-generation students navigate the hidden curriculum? Tell us more here.

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  • The Higher Ed Act Turns 60—And Needs a Refresh (opinion)

    The Higher Ed Act Turns 60—And Needs a Refresh (opinion)

    Sixty years ago, when Congress passed the Higher Education Act (HEA) of 1965, it made a bipartisan promise to the American people: that college opportunity should not be reserved for the wealthy, but made available to anyone willing to work for it. That commitment built the foundation for millions of students to pursue higher education, strengthen the workforce, improve their lives and advance our nation.

    But as we mark another anniversary of the HEA’s enactment, that promise feels increasingly distant. The law that should lay out a steadfast vision for higher education has been left to languish for nearly two decades without a comprehensive review or update. In the interim, the foundational need-based aid programs it created—like the Pell Grant and Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant programs—are now at the mercy of annual budget battles and political brinkmanship. When thoughtful reform is pushed to the back burner, the result is a student aid system that is fragmented and reactive, rather than strategic and steady. Rather than providing reliable support for students, it introduces instability and mistrust.

    The federal appropriations process, once a vehicle for steady investment in the nation’s priorities, has been weaponized—and students are collateral damage. The current government shutdown, now more than a month and counting, is only the latest reminder of how Congress is failing on its budgetary responsibilities. Congress consistently misses its own deadlines, instead relying on continuing resolutions, short-term fixes and partisan negotiations that leave students, families and the colleges that serve them in a constant state of uncertainty.

    When final budget information is not available until months after the fiscal year begins, students and families suffer. When schools cannot provide reliable estimates of federal, state or institutional aid awards, students are left in limbo and families lose faith that higher education remains a viable pathway to opportunity. That’s not a sustainable or fair system—it’s a symptom of one that’s been overrun by partisanship.

    Instead of prioritizing steady, predictable funding for student aid programs, lawmakers increasingly use appropriations as leverage to extract concessions on policy priorities better addressed outside of the appropriations process, ultimately leading to the threat of a government shutdown for which millions of Americans pay the price.

    But when updating landmark pieces of legislation falls off the list of priorities, it leaves few vehicles for thorough policy reform. FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) simplification—the largest overhaul of the financial aid system in decades—was tacked onto an appropriations bill in the final days of the first Trump administration.

    And it’s not just appropriations. Over the past two decades, Congress has used the budget reconciliation process—a tool designed for swift deficit reduction—to make sweeping changes to federal student aid. From the creation of Public Service Loan Forgiveness in 2007 to the elimination of bank-based lending in the student loan program in 2010 to the recent overhaul of repayment plans and new loan limits in 2025, these changes have reshaped the financial aid landscape one policy at a time. This disjointed approach to policy change without comprehensive and considered debate results in confusion, unrealistic implementation timelines, conflicting statutes and unintended consequences, leaving the professionals who must translate policy into practice to manage monumental changes with little warning—and often little or unclear guidance.

    Without question, there are real challenges in higher education that demand congressional action. College prices continue to rise, student loan debt remains a national concern and families are rightly asking whether higher education is still worth the investment. But the place to grapple with those long-term structural, accountability and sustainability issues is through a full reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, not a patchwork of policies layered on top of one another through reconciliation bills, regulatory processes and executive orders.

    The HEA was designed to be reviewed and reauthorized every five years to ensure that student aid programs evolve alongside students’ needs, but the last comprehensive reauthorization took place in 2008. Since then, higher education has changed dramatically, but the law underpinning our financial aid system has not.

    What’s been lost in all this is the chance to step back and evaluate the student aid system as a whole, receive thoughtful input from experts and stakeholders, and pursue a comprehensive, bipartisan approach to address the root issues: how to make college more affordable, adapt to new learning models, streamline student aid delivery and ensure that public dollars are truly serving students’ needs.

    The Higher Education Act was born out of a shared belief that education is a public good—a cornerstone of economic mobility and national strength. As we reflect on the last six decades of progress, it’s clear that the country still believes in the promise of higher education, but trust in the system to deliver on that promise is eroding. What’s missing is the political will to rise above the polarization that threatens to pull us apart and to protect that promise. Congress must return to the thoughtful policymaking that once defined our approach to higher education and reauthorize the law that made opportunity possible for generations of Americans.

    Melanie Storey is president and CEO of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA).

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  • The Rise of the Campus Right, Plus What Are Adjuncts For?

    The Rise of the Campus Right, Plus What Are Adjuncts For?

    It’s been a minute since I’ve done a Friday Fragments piece, but now that I’m publishing on Fridays, it seems a shame not to dust it off. So, here goes.

    –

    As a political theorist who works in higher ed administration, I’m embarrassed to admit that it took me until last month to get around to Lauren Lassabe Shepherd’s excellent book Resistance from the Right. In a way, though, the delay helped.

    Lassabe Shepherd outlines the rise of right-wing organizations on college campuses in the U.S. in the 1960s. That’s an unusual choice in its own right; most accounts of the 60s focus on the New Left, and most accounts of the rise of the right don’t focus on higher ed.

    Hearing it now—I listened to it as an audiobook while driving, so I don’t have quotes at the ready—I was struck by several threads. The first was just how thoroughly intentional more established conservative figures were in seeding campus organizations. Students with conservative leanings were funded, groomed, trained and recruited with an efficiency that the leaderless New Left simply didn’t have. Prominent conservatives funded campus newspapers and radio stations that gave up-and-coming young conservatives platforms that their left or liberal counterparts couldn’t rival. The right was playing the long game, and it paid off.

    As a theorist, too, I appreciated Lassabe Shepherd’s attention to the persistent tensions between the “traditionalist” and libertarian streaks within the right. In the context of a military draft, for instance, the two camps disagreed so fundamentally that organizations like Young Americans for Freedom had schisms, effectively banning one side (in their case, the libertarians) from the group entirely.

    The most striking resonance, though, came from listening in 2025, as opposed to when it was published in 2023. The book offers a series of accounts of right-wing groups attacking college presidents and/or trustees for being insufficiently harsh on left-wing student protesters. In the wake of the Gaza protests of the last couple of years, the observation “hit different,” as the young say. And even in the moments when conservative organizations weren’t calling for vengeance, they were actively trying to narrow down colleges’ missions to vocational preparation, preferably with students bearing most of the cost. The idea was to use economic power to enforce political discipline. Lewis Powell himself—later to join the Supreme Court—made the connection explicit. It was a conscious strategy.

    It’s one thing to suspect as much. It’s another to get empirical confirmation.

    Lassabe Shepherd also hosts a terrific podcast, American Campus, that has quickly become a favorite. But I really can’t recommend her book highly enough.

    –

    Thanks to the readers who wrote in with responses to the piece about hiring late-career professionals in technical fields as adjuncts as part of a glide path to retirement. Several readers noted that this was, in fact, the original vision of “adjunct” faculty: people with industry expertise who could offer a real-world complement to theory. Over time, the economic appeal of adjuncts to institutions led to expanding the category far beyond what it was intended to cover.

    There’s truth in that. In a job interview once, a professor asked me what my ideal adjunct percentage was. I replied something like “lower than it usually is now, but not zero.” The role can make sense in some cases. For example, when I was at the County College of Morris, it had a large and well-respected music program. (That’s still true.) Music majors had to have a primary instrument and a secondary one, one of which had to be piano. We could never realistically have a full-time professor for every major instrument. But being close-ish to New York City, we could draw on professional musicians as adjuncts. Given that most professional gigs are at night, daytime sections of lessons were fairly easy to staff. In that specific case, the model worked well. And I’ve seen it work with, say, working attorneys hired to teach a business law class on the side. In those cases, the appeal wasn’t simply cheap labor.

    A few other readers pointed out the need to provide serious pedagogical training for anyone picking up teaching as a late-career shift. (One reader made a distinction between the soon-to-retire and the retired; given the speed of technological change in many fields, folks who’ve been retired for a while may not be up-to-speed in the field anymore.) That’s obviously true, and something that we should be doing anyway. Many community colleges have variations on “centers for teaching and learning” that provide some of that, and some have formal mentoring programs as well. That said, I’ve also worked as an adjunct in places where the formal training consisted of showing me where to pick up my mail and where to get copies made. I hope things are better now, but I suspect the improvements are uneven across the industry.

    –

    Thanks, too, to the folks who wrote in about dual enrollment and its economic impact on community colleges. I was especially struck by a note from a college president I know who mentioned that she’s in the midst of a reduction in force caused by the economic consequences of dual enrollment. That’s rough. Honestly, I would rather have been wrong.

    –

    Some parents bond with their adult children over celebrity gossip, sports fandom or recipes. We do that too, but with a distinctly academic variation.

    The Girl and I recently spent a lovely hour or so rehashing and relishing the midcentury literary tiff between Irving Howe and Ralph Ellison.

    I’ll take it.

    Even better, she has her own distinct perspective on it, which she can back up with citations.

    As an academic Dad, I couldn’t be prouder.

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  • ED Reaches Consensus On Loan Caps

    ED Reaches Consensus On Loan Caps

    Negotiations were held in-person for one week at the beginning of October and a second week in November.

    Pete Kiehart/The Washington Post/Getty Images

    A very limited number of degree programs would have access to the highest level of loans under a new set of regulations that the Department of Education and its negotiating committee signed off on Thursday.

    The regulations, written in response to the loan caps of Congress’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, allow students in programs that qualify as professional to take out up to $200,000. Meanwhile, graduate students will only be able to take out up to $100,000.

    What was up for debate throughout the two-week negotiation process was which degree programs qualify for which level of loans.

    And while Thursday’s definition of professional programs was slightly more inclusive than the department’s original suggestion—a list of 10 degrees, including medicine, law, dentistry and a masters of divinity—they are not as expansive as a third proposal put forward by Alex Holt, the committee member representing taxpayers and public interest.

    The final definition limits professional programs to the original 10 programs, a doctorate in clinical psychology, and a handful of other doctorate programs that fall within the same four-digit CIP codes. By comparison, Holt’s plan would have included any program that is 80 credit hours long, regardless of whether it was a master’s or doctorate degree, so long as it fell within the same two-digit CIP code. (A CIP code, otherwise known as the Classification of Instructional Programs, is part of an organizational system used by ED to group similar academic programs.)

    On Thursday, before the committee’s final consensus vote, department officials explained to committee members that if they did not agree to their definition of a professional degree, they could lose out on other “concessions” they had won from the department. Without consensus, the department would legally be free to rewrite any aspect of the proposal prior to releasing it for public comment. (The proposal that reached consensus will still be subject to public comment.)

    “I also would like to remind everyone of numerous things that we have chosen to do in these negotiations that you requested for us to do,” said Tamy Abernathy, the department’s negotiator, before listing a slew of other changes the department made concerning the transition to new loan repayment plans and how to grandfather in existing borrowers to new loan policies.

    Under Secretary Nicolas Kent noted before the vote that the proposal was “not a perfect definition, but … a perfect definition for the purposes of consensus.”

    “We recognize that not every stakeholder group will be thrilled about our proposal,” Kent said. “But I want to remind everybody what consensus means, and that means that if you all agree, or can live with it—because we don’t have to love it—that we will take that regulatory language and put it into the notice of proposal.”

    Multiple committee members told Inside Higher Ed they agreed with Kent’s evaluation of what it took to reach a compromise.

    Kent closed the meeting by noting that “because we’ve reached consensus, negotiators and their employers will refrain from commenting negatively … as they agreed to do.”

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  • Higher Ed Must Take Action on Immigration Policy (opinion)

    Higher Ed Must Take Action on Immigration Policy (opinion)

    Under the current administration, we have witnessed a dangerous cascade of immigration policies and actions. These developments are impacting our students, employees, campuses and communities in real time, imperiling the future of our colleges and universities.

    It’s time for us in higher education to pull the fire alarm. Pulling the fire alarm does not mean panic. This is a call to respond, mobilize and act.

    Why Collective Action Is Urgent Now

    In recent months, the short- and long-term damage of the administration’s immigration actions has come into sharper focus, requiring significant action.

    • Prospective international student confidence in pursuing their studies in the U.S. has declined dramatically as a result of the administration’s actions. New international student enrollments are already down more than 10 percent this fall for many institutions—and considerably more for some—with analysts projecting more intense declines in future years.
    • The administration is actively taking away in-state tuition and financial aid access for undocumented students in a growing number of states and threatening specific institutions because of their support for undocumented students.
    • Reports of immigration enforcement on and around campuses are increasing, with more institutions grappling with how to respond to fear and anxiety in their communities and how to support students, family members and employees who are caught up in mass enforcement actions.
    • Humanitarian parolees and temporary protected status holders are losing their protections and work authorization, making them vulnerable targets for deportation.

    Campuses are already feeling the impact of these developments—but the economic consequences and implications for U.S. productivity and innovation are far broader. A new National Foundation for American Policy study estimates that the current administration’s immigration policies targeting undocumented, lawfully immigrant and international populations would reduce the number of workers in the U.S. by 6.8 million by 2028, and 15.7 million by 2035, lowering the annual rate of economic growth by nearly one-third.

    A recent paper on “brain freeze” projects that the U.S. will experience significant adverse economic and innovation impacts due to the declines in international students and researchers. The loss of any portion of the immigrant-origin and international students on our campuses, who together now make up close to 40 percent of all students in higher education, would be devastating for many institutions, local economies and states across the country.

    What Can We Do Together?

    Since January, colleges and universities have been responding to policies that adversely impact immigrant, international, refugee and other noncitizen campus members. At the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, we have collaborated with campuses to analyze emerging policies and develop effective responses, producing resources on immigration enforcement on campus, registration requirements for noncitizens and issues related to international students, as well as guidance on funding and tuition equity policies to support Dreamers and on ways to support students and other campus members who may be detained or deported.

    We now need to take it to the next level. Colleges, universities and the associations that represent them need to coordinate consistently to mobilize in response to the immigration-related threats impacting our campuses.

    Support Litigation

    Higher education groups, associations and institutions are engaging in litigation on many fronts. While it might seem overwhelming to challenge this administration’s dubious—and, as many legal experts and courts have concluded, unlawful—immigration policy actions, we need to connect the dots and explain the harm to judges who have the power to halt implementation and call out the administration for its constitutional violations.

    Public institutions in states with Democratic attorneys general can help to make the case to their AGs about the importance of joining these efforts. Some ways higher education institutions can support litigation include:

    • Serving as a named plaintiff. While associations representing colleges and universities, including the Presidents’ Alliance, the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in Massachusetts, and the Association of American Universities, have shown that they are ready to stand as named plaintiffs in legal challenges related to immigration, we will need more associations and institutions ready to support such litigation. Litigation is one way to interrupt intersecting policy actions that amplify the myriad threats facing immigrant and international communities and establish a record of opposition to potentially unlawful action.
    • Submitting a declaration. Institutions can play a vital role when they submit declarations to support legal challenges. These fact-based documents describe the concrete harms an institution is experiencing and provide crucial evidence that strengthens the overall case.
    • Joining an amicus brief. When campuses join amicus briefs, they demonstrate coordination and solidarity within the higher education sector. For example, last spring, when the American Association of University Professors challenged the administration’s unlawful visa revocations alleging an ideological deportation policy, 86 institutions and organizations joined the Presidents’ Alliance on an amicus brief that highlighted the importance of protecting international and noncitizen students’ and scholars’ freedom of speech. And, this week, 37 institutions and organizations joined us in an amicus brief that demonstrated the importance of tuition-equity policies for Dreamers.

    Speak Out

    Institutions and associations need to work more closely together to support one another and to communicate the damage of harmful immigration policies. During this administration, public and private institutions are more measured and constrained—by boards, state policies and structures and campus politics—in what they say and do publicly. We know that fear of retribution and the potential collateral damage to other campus constituencies informs decision-making. Many institutional leaders with whom I speak are seeking to do what is strategically effective and are weighing multiple priorities and competing commitments.

    What we know now is that not speaking out does not preclude an institution from becoming a target, and many campus constituencies are already being harmed. So, the strategic calculus is changing, and there may be more to be gained in speaking out. Here are some effective ways to speak out:

    • Affirming one for all, all for one. University of Nevada, Reno, president Brian Sandoval, a former Republican governor of Nevada, swiftly responded to the Department of Justice’s attacks on UNR’s support for undocumented students, stating clearly that UNR’s services were lawful and that supporting all students’ success is core to the higher education mission. The Presidents’ Alliance and TheDream.US issued public statements of support, reaffirming the importance of higher education supporting Dreamers and the success of all students. When individual institutions speak out, they often affirm our common mission, and we, in turn, can reaffirm theirs.
    • Supporting associational statements. Associations are playing an important role in convening institutional leaders and leading on statements. We must continue to lean on each other and on associations. Statements organized by the American Association of Colleges and Universities and the American Council on Education on the proposed compact for higher education make our sector’s stances clear. Institutions and associations that can join such statements should continue to do so.
    • Educating and engaging. Institutional leaders and board members can spread accurate, positive messages about immigrant and international students, shifting the narrative through commentaries such as Arizona State University president Michael Crow’s op-ed on the importance of international students.

    Join in Coalition Building

    For collective action to work, we need to build out dedicated spaces for higher education institutions to come together and coordinate. This call to action does not mitigate the need and usefulness for the private conversations that institutional leaders have on their campuses, in their states, on the Hill and with the current administration. While a good number of us may need to stay in more quiet spaces, now is also the time when each of us needs to consider what more we can do together.

    • Join us in coalition-building. Building and hosting immigration-specific coordinating groups and strategy sessions has been a focus for us at the Presidents’ Alliance. It has proven productive for developing relationships with other sectors and building buy-in across regional contexts. We invite you to join us in our work to build common ground across the political spectrum and to advocate for forward-looking, common sense immigration reform.
    • Strengthen your coordination. Institutions must prepare to navigate evolving policies. Strengthening coordination will help campuses understand new developments quickly while avoiding pre-emptive or overcompliance. It will help institutions know what they can do when they need to move swiftly to respond to immigration enforcement or policy actions that may have immediate consequences.

    When we sound the alarm, we call others to take action alongside us. The time for urgent response is here. Together, higher education can take coordinated steps to defend our institutions and community members.

    Miriam Feldblum is the co-founder, president and CEO of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration.

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  • Student Success Leaders Worry About Affordability, AI, DEI

    Student Success Leaders Worry About Affordability, AI, DEI

    After yet another rocky year for higher education, student success administrators retain high confidence in their institution’s core mission: Some 95 percent rate the quality of undergraduate education delivered as good or excellent, according to Inside Higher Ed’s second annual Survey of College and University Student Success Administrators with Hanover Research.

    About the Survey

    On Wednesday, Dec. 10, at 2 p.m. Eastern, Inside Higher Ed will present a free webcast to discuss the results of the 2025 Survey of College and University Student Success Administrators. Please register here—and plan on bringing your questions about student success going into 2026.

    This survey was conducted Aug. 20–Oct. 6 with Hanover Research. Respondents number 204 student success leaders, most of whom work in student affairs at the executive level at public and private nonprofit institutions. The survey’s margin of error is plus or minus seven percentage points. A copy of the free report can be downloaded here.

    This independent editorial survey was made possible by support from the Gates Foundation and Studiosity.

    Most student success administrators (85 percent) also report strong feelings of connection to students served, and nearly as many say they’re satisfied in their roles. Yet leaders continue to worry about the forces holding students back. Selecting up to three options from a longer list, administrators cite mental health challenges (51 percent describe this as a top challenge), financial constraints (49 percent) and lack of adequate preparation before college (48 percent) as the top barriers to student success at their institution. Community college leaders are disproportionately concerned about students needing to work while enrolled (67 percent).

    Just about half of all administrators believe their institution is highly responsive to student needs for flexibility, such as in times of personal or academic crises.

    A larger share of respondents, 61 percent, believe their institution is highly effective in prioritizing student success. Just 35 percent say it’s highly effective in using student success data to drive decisions, however. Both of these figures are similar to last year’s survey, meaning the gap between aspiration and data-driven change remains.

    Student affairs leaders who responded to NASPA’s own annual Top Issues in Student Affairs survey this year flagged “using dashboards and other data communication tools to help senior administrators translate data into actionable insights for decision-making” as a top issue for institutions, behind only “protecting the institution against cyberattacks” and “navigating political and legislative pressures affecting institutional policies and practices.”

    Colleges can certainly do more to harness the extraordinary number of student data points available to them every day. But Amelia Parnell, NASPA’s president, told Inside Higher Ed that she’d give student success leaders “a little more credit” for their use of data—especially the qualitative kind.

    “We need both quantitative data to see scale and impact and qualitative data to understand the nuances,” including around learning and engagement, she said. “I think professionals have quite a bit of qualitative context about students’ experiences because they spend a lot of time connecting directly with them.”

    Other top areas of concern for student success administrators include affordability, artificial intelligence and policy impacts on campus life, finds Inside Higher Ed’s survey.

    Affordability and Value

    A third of student success administrators say that their trust in higher education has waned in recent years, and many point to concerns about affordability (64 percent) and long-term value of a degree (62 percent) as top drivers of declining public confidence. Leaders also highlight tighter alignment between academic programs and career pathways as a key lever for rebuilding trust.

    About six in 10 respondents are highly confident that their institution is actively working to keep costs affordable, with public institution leaders especially likely to say so (69 percent versus 49 percent of private nonprofit peers).

    But just 11 percent of leaders think students at their institution clearly understand the total cost of attendance, beyond tuition. They raise similar concerns about students’ awareness and understanding of emergency funding resources at their institution.

    In Inside Higher Ed’s main Student Voice survey this year, just 27 percent of students said they understand the total cost of attendance fully and can budget appropriately. More than three in five didn’t know if their college offers emergency aid. Yet 61 percent of student success administrators say this kind of help is available at their institution.

    Some additional context—and evidence of misalignment between student experience and administrator perception: In Inside Higher Ed’s 2025 Survey of College and University Chief Business Officers, most CBOs (88 percent) said that their institution is transparent about the full, net cost of attendance, including tuition discounts and counting fees and other expenses—though just 42 percent said this of colleges and universities as a whole. Most CBOs also said that their institution’s net price is sufficiently affordable.

    Parnell of NASPA noted that financial aid “is but one part of the cost of attendance discussion for some students.” But she added that financial aid offers represent an opportunity for colleges to improve clarity and transparency around total cost—something the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators and others have urged.

    Preparing Students for an AI Future

    Just 2 percent of student success leaders say their institution is very effective in helping students understand how, when and whether to use generative artificial intelligence in academic settings. On promoting academic integrity, specifically, 77 percent endorse educating students about ethical AI use rather than emphasizing punitive measures. Faculty and staff development and efforts to standardize use policies also rank high.

    In the Student Voice survey, just 13 percent of students said they didn’t know when, how and whether to use generative AI for coursework—but most of the remainder attributed their knowledge to individual faculty efforts rather than broader institutional ones.

    Student success administrators also describe a gap between the extent to which high-impact teaching practices, such as those endorsed by the American Association of Colleges and Universities, are highly encouraged at their institution and widely adopted (65 percent versus 36 percent, respectively). And while 87 percent agree that students graduate from their college ready to succeed in today’s job market, half (51 percent) believe their institution should focus more on helping students find paid internships and other experiential learning opportunities.

    Tawnya Means, an innovation consultant who recently joined Bowling Green State University and its Schmidthorst College of Business as a strategic innovation and AI adviser, said that all three of these concerns—lack of institutional guidance on AI, high-impact teaching practices and other opportunities for experiential learning and internships—are connected.

    “Schools treating AI as a catalyst for pedagogical redesign are simultaneously increasing high-impact practices and preparing students for AI-augmented careers,” she said. And institutions doing this well are using some common strategies: making faculty development about pedagogy, not just “AI compliance,” and designing assignments where AI supports real learning. Unpacking the latter point, Means praised approaches that are experiential, teach discipline-specific or contextual AI use versus abstract rules, and mirror actual workplaces.

    While business schools have long understood the power of “messy real-world case studies,” Means said they’re ripe for use across undergraduate education in the generative AI era and “resist simple AI shortcuts.”

    Parnell suggested on-campus employment as yet another way to provide “work experience and support students in their learning journey.”

    On AI specifically, Asim Ali, executive director of the Biggio Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning at Auburn University, who’s worked with many institutions on faculty development, said the “biggest gap I see is not engaging students in the process.”

    At Auburn, he said, student government leaders have taken a “focused interest directly in shaping how we support GenAI learning.” And in discussions between student leaders and faculty, “both groups emphasized that students must also take responsibility for learning the ethics and appropriate use of GenAI.”

    The biggest gap I see is not engaging students in the process.”

    —Asim Ali, executive director of the Biggio Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning at Auburn University

    Financial worries and uncertainty about the future top the list of students’ postcollege stressors, as ranked by student success administrators. And just a quarter of these leaders say their institution makes postgraduate outcomes are easily accessible.

    Policy Impacts and Campus Climate

    Almost all leaders say students feel welcomed, valued and supported on their campuses, and 87 percent say their institution is doing a good or excellent job promoting a positive campus climate. Yet regional differences emerge: Leaders in the South are somewhat less likely than peers elsewhere to say their institution is highly effective in encouraging diverse perspectives among students.

    Nearly two in three leaders (62 percent) say recent federal restrictions on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives have negatively impacted students, and the rate is higher among public institution leaders than their private nonprofit peers.

    In the Student Voice survey, 48 percent of students said such changes had negatively impacted their college experience or that of peers; most of the remainder saw no change, rather than a positive one.

    Most administrators also believe new student aid policies, such as those included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, will limit access to college rather than expand it. And many already report moderate (39 percent) or significant (29 percent) declines in international student enrollments tied to recent federal actions, such as visa appointment restrictions and targeted actions at specific institutions.

    Leaders estimate that 40 percent of students participate in no extracurricular activities, a figure that rises to 67 percent among community college administrators. Respondents are mostly like to say involvement would increase if students saw a clear connection between activities and their career goals.

    For institutions struggling to get students in involved, Parnell highlighted the importance of effectively communicating and delivering available activities to students: Are any activities at community colleges, which serve many working students, available after 5 p.m., for example, she asked?

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  • International Graduate Student Enrollment Drops

    International Graduate Student Enrollment Drops

    Master’s programs at some college saw steep declines in international student enrollment.

    Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | skynesher/E+/Getty Images

    Federal actions to limit immigration have affected many international students’ decision to enroll at U.S. colleges and universities this fall, with several institutions reporting dramatic declines in international student enrollment.

    New data from the Department of Homeland Security from the Student Exchange and Visitor Information System for October shows an overall 1 percent decline of all international students in the U.S. SEVIS data includes all students on F-1 and M-1 visas, including those enrolled in primary and secondary school, language training, flight school, and other vocational programs.

    According to DHS data, bachelor’s degree enrollment among international students is down 1 percent from October 2024 to October 2025; master’s degree enrollment is down 2 percent, as well. Associate degree programs have 7 percent more international students in October 2025 than the year prior, and international doctoral students are up 2 percent.

    Campus-level data paints a more dramatic picture; an Inside Higher Ed analysis of self-reported graduate international student enrollment numbers from nine colleges and universities finds an average year-over-year decline of 29 percent.

    Some groups, including NAFSA, the association for international educators, have published predictions of how international student enrollment would impact colleges’ enrollment and financial health. NAFSA expected to see a 15 percent decline across the sector and greater drops for master’s degree programs.

    “Master’s [programs] have been very hit. And in addition to master’s being hit, programs like computer sciences and STEM in particular have been mostly affected,” NAFSA CEO Fanta Aw said in a Sept. 19 interview with Inside Higher Ed.

    At the University of Wisconsin at Madison, for example, master’s degree enrollment dropped 22 percent from fall 2024. Ph.D. program enrollment declined only 1 percent compared to the year prior, according to university data.

    While more selective or elite institutions have mostly weathered enrollment declines among undergraduate international students—reporting little or no change to their enrollment numbers this fall—Aw says graduate student enrollment is down everywhere.

    The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, for example, reported that international students made up 26 percent of its incoming master’s in business administration class, down five percentage points from the year prior, as reported by Poets and Quants (Poets and Quants is also owned by Times Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed’s parent company). At Duke’s Fuqua School of Business, 47 percent of the incoming class in 2024 hailed from other nations, but that figure dropped to 38 percent this fall.

    Because master’s degrees are shorter programs than undergraduate ones, averaging two years, Aw anticipates universities to see even more dramatic declines from 2024 in fall 2026.

    “The current environment is still too uncertain for [graduate] students to even consider potentially applying,” Aw said. “You cannot have enrollment if they’re not even applying.”

    Of colleges in the data set, Northwest Missouri State University reported the greatest year-over-year decline in graduate student enrollment, falling from 557 international students in fall 2024 to 125 in fall 2025. In April, Northwest Missouri State reported that 43 of its international students had their SEVIS statuses revoked; 38 of them were on optional practical training.

    At that time, Northwest Missouri State encouraged students who lost their SEVIS status to depart the U.S. immediately “to avoid accruing unlawful presence,” according to a memo from President Lance Tatum published by Fox 4 Kansas City. The university declined to comment for this piece.

    Nationwide, international students make up 22 percent of all full-time graduate students, according to Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System data. International students often pay higher tuition rates compared to their domestic peers, and some colleges rely on international students to boost graduate program enrollment.

    The dramatic changes in enrollment numbers are having budgetary impacts on some colleges.

    At Georgetown University, foreign graduate student enrollment dropped 20 percent, which was expected but steeper than anticipated, according to a memo from interim university president Robert M. Groves. In April, Georgetown cut $100 million from its budget due to loss of federal research dollars and international student revenue, and Groves said more cuts may be needed in December.

    DePaul University in Chicago saw a 63 percent year-over-year decline in new graduate students from other nations—a sharp drop that administrators, similarly, did not anticipate in this year’s budget.

    As more colleges solidify their fall enrollment numbers, the sectorwide decline in foreign students has become more clear.

    Inside Higher Ed’s initial data found colleges reported, on average, a 13 percent decrease in international student enrollment. The median year-over-year change was a 9 percent drop.

    Small colleges saw significant changes. Bethany Lutheran College in Minnesota, with a total head count of 900 students, reported a 50 percent growth in international students. At the other end, the University of Hartford in Connecticut lost half of its international students, only expecting 50 instead of 100 this fall.

    Community colleges are also feeling the loss of international students. Bellevue College in Washington State, a leading destination for international students in the two-year sector, reported a 56 percent year-over-year decline in enrollment.

    Southeast Missouri State reported a 63 percent decline in international students, with 494 individuals unable to secure visas, according to a university statement.

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  • Former Texas A&M President Received $3.5M Exit Package

    Former Texas A&M President Received $3.5M Exit Package

    When former Texas A&M University president Mark Welsh stepped down suddenly in September amid a swirling academic freedom controversy, he received an exit package of more than $3.5 million, according to public records obtained by The Texas Tribune.

    Welsh, who became president in 2023 after his predecessor, Kathy Banks, stepped down following a controversy of her own, pressed the Texas A&M System Board of Trustees to pay out the remainder of his contract through December 2028, according to recently unearthed records. He earned a $1.1 million base salary with annual retention and housing bonuses of $150,000 each.

    Welsh was one of several Texas A&M employees felled by controversy after a conservative state lawmaker accused the university of pushing “leftist DEI and transgender indoctrination” following an exchange between a student and a professor caught on video. In that video, the student objected to a professor’s statement that there are more than two genders. The incident, which the student captured, took place in a children’s literature class.

    Welsh initially defended the professor in a conversation with the student but later backtracked, removing the professor and two administrators from their duties over their handling of the issue. 

    He argued that the incident was not about academic freedom but rather “academic responsibility” and that “the [College of Arts and Sciences] continued to teach content that was inconsistent with the published course description for another course this fall,” prompting his actions.

    Despite his reversal, demands for Welsh to resign prevailed.

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  • 4 Ways to Support Military Students

    4 Ways to Support Military Students

    An estimated 820,000 students in higher education are military-affiliated, including current and former active-duty service members and their families. These students are more likely to be first-generation or parenting students and often hold competing priorities while pursuing a degree, which can put them at risk of stopping out.

    A Nov. 4 webinar by the American Council on Education solicited insights from former and current service members on their experiences navigating higher education and how campuses can improve supports.

    “Veterans are not a monolith; they don’t want pity or lower bars,” said Roman Ortega, chief executive officer and founder of Global Integrity Consulting and a member of the Army Reserve. “They want colleges to treat them like they’re mission-driven adults and to remove the friction that keeps them from showing what they already know how to do.”

    Veterans shared four key themes that could enhance military-affiliated students’ college experience.

    1. College Navigation

    About two-thirds of student veterans are first-generation college students, according to data from Student Veterans of America. First-generation students, in general, often lack cultural capital and insight into the bureaucracy of higher education; for former service members, college can be even more mystifying. Effective advising can make a difference, veterans said during the webinar.

    “I was enrolled at Northern Illinois University. I didn’t know what to do or where to go,” Ortega said. “I saw a sign for Army ROTC; I walked right into the office and I said, ‘Hey, I really don’t know what I’m doing here, I don’t know where any of my classes are, I don’t know how to be advised on any of this. They said, ‘Hey, we’ll help you out.’”

    Bringing in other military-affiliated students can be one way to boost engagement; several veterans mentioned they enrolled in higher education because of positive peer pressure from other service members.

    “I didn’t even know what questions to ask. I just knew my peers were going and I wanted to be a part of that,” said Lola Howard, an Air Force veteran and doctoral student at Columbia Southern University.

    Not every branch of the military looks at continuing education in the same way, which can have an impact on participation, veterans noted. “The Air Force, the Navy very much culturally encourage continued education in the service,” noted Lukas Simianer, an Army veteran and chief executive officer and founder of VetClaims.ai. “If you would have told the commander of Fort Bragg that you were going to go to college, they would have laughed.”

    The University of Texas, San Antonio, has a dedicated first-year seminar for student veterans, which helps them establish a sense of belonging early in their college career and provides them with personalized assistance in obtaining credit for military service.

    1. Credit for Prior Learning

    Military-affiliated students often enroll in higher education with a wealth of experiences that can translate directly into course learning outcomes. ACE and other organizations have worked to streamline credit for prior learning offerings through the joint service transcript, which can help make college more accessible and affordable for veterans.

    “It was very clear what the equivalent courses were that were off of my degree plan,” said Jonny Coreson, a Navy veteran and director of workforce strategy at the Learning Economy Foundation. “It was an opportunity to see that I had few courses [left] to attain an associate’s degree, but I literally had to see it.”

    However, not every student veteran is eligible for or benefits from CPL in the same way, Simianer said.

    “Be prepared that some of your veterans who have arguably had some of the hardest deployments, hardest service life, most wear and tear on their bodies, they may have the most courses to fulfill,” Simianer said. “Being really good at handling a machine gun does not really translate [to degree programs].”

    1. Flexibility

    Active-duty service members can experience frequent change as part of their service, including deployment or relocation. Student veterans are also often more likely to be parenting students or working, and these competing priorities can make pursuing a degree more challenging.

    Creating a safe space for students to share their obstacles to success can mitigate disruptions to learning.

    “As a student, it was important for me to communicate up front what was going on with my life, with my counselor, with my faculty, staff,” Howard said. “There were times that my house is being packed up and I’m trying to finish an eight-page paper and I just had to let my professor know, ‘I’m going from this time zone to that time zone—I’m just asking for a little flexibility.’”

    1. Resource Hubs

    Some colleges have created dedicated spaces on campus to centralize resources and connect military students with one another. Simianer, an older student who had won a Purple Heart and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, remembers looking at his peers and feeling like he couldn’t relate to traditional students. But getting connected to his college’s student veteran hub changed that.

    “Having a place where I could be, where the humor we had would fly or the conversations you needed to have could happen, is the most powerful thing that I am grateful for,” Simianer said. “I would not have continued an education, probably, if I would not have had that at the beginning.”

    Javier Marin, a Marine Corps veteran and consultant at Vantage Point Consulting, said his college’s student veteran hub was particularly impactful because it connected him to staff.

    “I found that the hardest part wasn’t the academics; it was having a good support system,” Marin said. “You’re working, you’re going to school, you’re being a parent, you have a mortgage—everything that goes along with transitioning and navigating that space without your old support system, which was the military.”

    How does your campus seek to improve the college experience for military affiliated students? Tell us more.

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