Tag: News

Harvard Health and Human Rights Director Stepping Down

Officials also announced that the center will hone its primary focus to children’s health.

John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe/Getty Images

The director of Harvard University’s François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights will step down in January after seven years at the helm, dean of the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health Andrea Baccarelli announced Tuesday. News of her departure follows months of criticism of the center’s Palestine Program for Health and Human Rights.

Mary Bassett’s last day as director will be Jan. 9, 2026, after which she will remain a professor of practice in the Social and Behavioral Sciences Department. Kari Nadeau, a professor of climate and population studies at Harvard, will serve as interim director. Bassett did not respond to a request for an interview Thursday. A Harvard spokesperson did not answer Inside Higher Ed’s questions about Bassett’s departure, including whether she was asked to step down, and instead pointed to Baccarelli’s message.

Baccarelli also announced that the center will shift its primary focus to children’s health.

“Over the past years, FXB has worked on a wide range of programs within the context of human rights, extending across varied projects, including those related to oppression, poverty, and stigma around the world,” he wrote. “We believe we can accomplish more, and have greater impact, if we go deeper in a primary area of focus.”

The center’s Palestine Program for Health and Human Rights drew increased scrutiny after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack in Israel, including from former Harvard president Larry Summers and New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik. In previous years, the program partnered with Birzeit University in the West Bank, but Harvard declined to renew that partnership in the spring. In their April report on antisemitism on campus, Harvard officials detailed complaints from students about the program’s webinars, in which speakers allegedly “presented a demonizing view of Israel and Israelis.”

“One student told us that the FXB programming created the impression that ‘Israel exists solely to oppress Palestinians, and nothing else,’” the report stated.

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December 12, 2025
College Aid Previews Aim to Improve Early Decision

With the imminent arrival of early-decision results comes a new round of hand-wringing about the admissions practice, which affords students a better chance of getting accepted to their top institution but requires them to commit if admitted.

Critics argue that the practice disadvantages low- and middle-income students, who fear being locked into attending a college before they know if they can afford it—although many colleges with an early-decision option allow students to back out over financial constraints. It also prevents applicants from comparing financial aid offers across multiple institutions.

“Because there is so much uncertainty, families with high incomes are more likely to choose early decision and therefore benefit from its more favorable odds. It’s the perfect tool for maximizing revenues at schools positioned as luxury products, with price tags to match,” wrote Daniel Currell, a former deputy under secretary and senior adviser at the Department of Education from 2018 to 2021, in a New York Times op-ed published Wednesday that argued for the end of early decision. Indeed, Common App data about the fall 2021 freshman class showed that students from the wealthiest ZIP codes were twice as likely to apply early decision.

But despite the criticisms, some institutions are aiming to make the practice more equitable. A handful of small liberal arts colleges have introduced initiatives in recent years to allow students to preview their financial aid offers before they decide whether or not to apply early, which admissions leaders say they hope will make lower-income students feel more comfortable taking the leap.

Reed College, a selective liberal arts college in Oregon, began offering early-decision aid reviews this year, which allow early-decision applicants to request and view their full financial aid packages before they receive an actual decision from the university. Just like an official aid offer, the preview is calculated by financial aid staff using the College Scholarship Service profile.

If they aren’t entirely comfortable with the amount of aid they’re set to receive—or they’d rather compare offers from other institutions—they can drop their application down into the early-action pool.

“I just think that this anxiety that people have over not getting the best financial deal for their family has been a barrier for people saying, ‘This is my first-choice school and I want to do everything I can to increase my chances for admission,’” said Milyon Trulove, vice president and dean of admission and financial aid at Reed.

Early financial aid offers are among the various steps institutions have taken in recent years to improve cost transparency and, in many cases, show students that their institutions are affordable. Others include improved cost estimators and campaigns offering free tuition for families under a particular income limit. Institutions hope that such innovations will help prevent students from writing off their institutions—particularly selective institutions that offer significant aid—due to their sticker prices.

So far, Reed’s reviews appear to be doing a good job of enticing applicants who otherwise might not have applied early; the number of early-decision applicants this year increased 60 percent compared to last admissions cycle. Only one student has opted to switch to early action, which is nonbinding, after receiving their estimated offer.

Similar programs at other institutions have also proven successful. Whitman College in Washington began offering early financial aid guarantees in 2020 to any prospective student who had filled out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. The initiative wasn’t created specifically to promote early decision, said Adam Miller, vice president for admission and financial aid. But he said he hoped that making it clear to families that Whitman is affordable would also open doors for students interested in applying early decision but nervous about costs.

Early-decision applications haven’t increased at Whitman like they did this year at Reed. But Miller noted that the college’s early-decision applicants are as socioeconomically diverse as the institution’s overall applicant pool, rather than skewing wealthier.

“As we think about these nationwide conversations and the very valid criticism of early decision, we think that our approach allows us to have kind of a win-win,” he said. “We still get the benefit of students who are applying early, [so] that we can start to build our incoming class with some confidence,” while also eliminating financial uncertainty for families.

Last year, the university’s four-person financial aid staff handled 546 requests for early aid guarantees. It’s an extra lift for the tiny office, but, Miller said, 410 of those students ended up applying—“so it’s not like we were doing a lot of extra work for students that we weren’t going to be doing it for anyway.”

Macalester College also launched such a program in 2021. The institution, which typically admits between 35 and 40 percent of its incoming class from early decision, implemented aid previews in conjunction with a number of other steps aimed at improving access, including going test-optional and eliminating its application fee.

“If we have an opportunity to do something that we think might be helpful to an individual student or family, I guess I feel as responsibility as an enrollment manager to try to initiate a new practice or new policy,” said Jeff Allen, vice president for admissions and financial aid at Macalester.

Boosting Cost Transparency

Financial aid experts said they see early financial aid calculations as a good option for institutions hoping to make the early-decision process—and college costs over all—more transparent.

Students should be able to “apply early decision to a school where they know it’s the place for them and they don’t need to be saying, ‘But I need the financial aid so maybe this isn’t a good choice,’” said Jill Desjean, director of policy analysis at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. “That option should be available to anyone that finds the school where they really feel like they belong via early decision without having to factor in their finances, so any kind of early estimates, accurate early estimates—anything like that is a positive thing.”

She noted that such programs might be too heavy of a lift for institutions receiving massive numbers of applications every year, but also that larger institutions have more resources and staffing to accommodate such requests.

James Murphy, a senior fellow at Class Action, an advocacy organization focused on “reimagining elite higher education,” said that while he sees early aid previews as a positive step toward transparency, they don’t address some of his key concerns about early decision. At many expensive private high schools, he said, nearly every student applies early decision, whereas public high school students often aren’t even aware of the option.

“There’s kind of a culture thing. If you go to Georgetown Prep … everybody’s applying early decision, or most students are applying early decision, unless they’re applying to Harvard or Stanford that don’t have it … When you look at public schools, that’s not nearly as common,” he said. “I think raising awareness of early decision as a viable option for more students is one step that higher education could take to make it a little bit more equitable.”

He also noted that some institutions admit over half of their incoming classes from early-decision applicants, which dramatically lowers the chances for regular-admission applicants to be admitted.

“The New York Times had that op-ed about banning it. That’s not going to happen. Colleges will fight so hard to make that not happen,” he said. But, he said, “what I would love to see is caps” on the percentage of students that can be admitted early decision.

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December 12, 2025
Willamette and Pacific Universities Plan Merger

If approved, the merger between Willamette (above) and Pacific would create the largest private university in Oregon.

Pacific University and Willamette University have signed a letter of intent to merge, pending approval, which would create the largest private institution in Oregon if the deal is finalized.

Together the two institutions have a collective study body of about 6,000 students.

“If finalized and approved, this merger would be a defining moment for private higher education in the region. Pacific and Willamette are both deeply rooted in Oregon’s history and have educated thousands of leaders who have helped make the Pacific Northwest synonymous with innovation and excellence,” Willamette president Steve Thorsett said in a news release.

Pacific president Jenny Coyle emphasized a shared “commitment to addressing the region’s most pressing workforce needs while preserving the personalized, mission-driven education that defines both of our institutions” and the opportunity to leverage “our collective strengths.”

The combined entity would be known as the University of the Northwest.

The two institutions plan to operate under a shared administrative structure but maintain their respective campuses, admissions requirements, academic programs and athletic teams. Their main campuses are located roughly an hour apart; Willamette is in Salem and Pacific in Forest Grove. Willamette also has a campus in Portland that houses an art college.

The merger will require approval from regulatory bodies, including the Department of Education.

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December 11, 2025
SUNY Service Corps Fights Food Insecurity in New York

As food insecurity continues to rise across New York, the State University of New York’s public service program has stepped in to address the growing need.

The SUNY Empire State Service Corps, a paid, student-driven initiative with more than 500 members, has ramped up its on-the-ground efforts in recent months.

Launched in May 2024, the group was funded with $2.75 million from the state budget and is New York’s largest AmeriCorps program. SUNY Corps students assist New York residents in high-need communities with K–12 tutoring, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and basic needs outreach, peer mental health support, sustainability projects, hate and bias prevention, nonpartisan civic engagement, and FAFSA completion.

SUNY chancellor John B. King Jr. said the program played an integral role during the federal government shutdown this fall as New York residents faced cutbacks to federal food-assistance benefits.

“The threats to the SNAP program presented a huge challenge for New York,” King said. “Many of our food pantries saw a significant uptick in usage before the shutdown, and then certainly during the shutdown as people anticipated not being able to access SNAP benefits.”

SUNY chancellor John B. King Jr. (center, in light blue shirt) joins students and staff as they pack backpacks with supplies for New York elementary students.

State University of New York at Binghamton

In response, New York governor Kathy Hochul provided $200,000 in additional funding to bring on more SUNY Corps students to help families at risk of losing aid. The funding will support the added students for the remainder of the academic year.

King said the additional paid hours were essential and allowed campuses to quickly mobilize students to support food pantries and community centers.

“Many of our students know what it’s like to be in a situation where your family finances feel incredibly fragile,” King said. “So when our students see classmates who are food insecure, who are skipping meals in order to make ends meet or who are distracted in class because they’re hungry, they worry a lot about them.”

Inside the Service Corps

SUNY Corps students dedicate at least 300 hours to paid community service and are eligible to receive an AmeriCorps Segal Education Award of up to $1,500.

“They’re from every part of the state, every socioeconomic background, every ethnic background, every faith background, and they are excited to work together to make the community better,” King said. “It’s exactly what we should be doing in higher ed, and it’s exactly what we need as a country.”

More than 500 students from 45 SUNY campuses participated in the program this year, and interest continues to outpace availability; applications exceeded campus placements by more than three to one over the last two years.

Sarah Hall, an Empire State Service Corps coordinator and senior assistant director at the State University of New York at Binghamton, said her campus received more than 200 applications for just 50 spots this year.

“Every time I talk to a student who is part of our Empire State Service Corps, you can really feel how meaningful this is to their own personal and professional growth,” Hall said. “I really think this is setting them on a path of service in their future.”

Sarah Hall, an Empire State Service Corps coordinator at SUNY Binghamton.

State University of New York at Binghamton

Following the federal government shutdown, Hall said, her students quickly mobilized a meal kit assembly effort after Hochul provided the additional funding.

“We purchased over $4,000 worth of food … so when families go to a pantry or food bank, they’re able to just pick up an entire meal that will feed a family of four,” Hall said, adding that her students put together more than 560 kits.

Beyond Binghamton, the first cohort of SUNY Corps students statewide, logged over 100,000 hours of service and served more than 70,000 New York residents during the 2024–25 program year.

“It’s a reflection that young people really want to serve and want to contribute to the community and are eager for these opportunities,” King said.

What’s Next

The chancellor said the government shutdown underscored how essential sustained investment in public service programs will be in the years ahead.

“I’d love to see federal investment in this space,” King said. “There continues to be bipartisan support for the AmeriCorps program, so my hope is that we can continue to grow national service efforts around the country.”

He noted that New York was recently selected as one of four states—along with California, Colorado and Kentucky—to join the Service Year Alliance, an inaugural cohort seeking to grow the number of paid service opportunities throughout the United States.

Looking ahead, King said the SUNY Empire State Service Corps could serve as a model for colleges and states seeking to build or expand their public service initiatives because it’s “highly replicable.”

“There’s a lot of reasons for people to feel discouraged about the health of our democracy,” King said. “But when you’re with these students who are committing 300 hours plus a year to service, it makes you quite hopeful.”

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December 11, 2025
A New Vision for Learning Evaluation
A recent study examining credit evaluation across five public community colleges and universities found pronounced pain points for both learners and the campus personnel supporting them in evaluating their coursework and other college-level learning. In their own words, learners described the process with frustration, resignation, and, at times, outright indignation:
- A community college transfer student described the process of having their previous courses evaluated as a “six- to eight-month battle” that soured the joy of transfer admission and sent them on a wild goose hunt to track down prior course materials to prove their worth. “I had to fight with my department and contact all of my old professors from my community college and get syllabi and [approval] took so long … I had to send it back three times.”
- A learner transferring from a private university expressed the heightened anxiety they experienced in the process and the high stakes at hand: “I think maybe three of my courses transferred over two years. I submitted like over 20 petitions just to get my credits to transfer over … it’s been a little bit difficult and really stressful because my program specifically kicks you out if you don’t graduate in two years.”
- A student working full-time who sought a prior learning assessment, only to be met with silence and delays over the course of a year, spoke frankly: “My faith … dropped each semester and I got to the point of acceptance, like, ‘Oh, it’s OK. I’ll just take the classes again … It’s gonna be easy because I’ve already taken them before. I’ll be fine. I won’t have to study as much.’ But yeah, it’s just extra classes that I could have minimized.”
- A community college student who learned after being accepted and deciding to enroll that they would have to go back and take additional general education courses: “I was upset because when I got here, they were like, ‘You need more GE requirements.’ And I was like, ‘What did I do all that work for? Why did you accept me, if I needed more GE requirements?’”
These firsthand accounts demonstrate a painful truth: Learning evaluation decisions shape learners’ trajectories. A decision to not award credit can add time and money to a learner’s educational path and ultimately impact whether they decide to continue. Indeed, a national poll of adult Americans by Public Agenda for Beyond Transfer found that negative credit transfer experiences can erode trust in higher education and even dissuade adults from pursuing a college credential altogether.

Such data should be a clarion call to higher education. Too often, though, it is treated like background noise. This is why we came together nearly 18 months ago to launch the Learning Evaluation and Recognition for the Next Generation Commission (co-convened by Sova and the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers), and why this week we issued our final report outlining a robust set of actions for institutional, state and system leaders to dramatically transform learning evaluation policy and practice.

Taking up the commission’s charge was a pointed call to action for each of us, who in our varied roles as campus administrators, registrars, former faculty, student success professionals, researchers, accreditor leaders and advocates have dedicated our careers to expanding postsecondary opportunity and attainment. From our own firsthand knowledge and collective experience, we readily understood some of the challenges beleaguering learning evaluation. As discussed in this column last fall, learning evaluation at most institutions—including institutions of all levels and sizes—is a highly manual and decentralized process riddled with inefficiency, inconsistency and a lack of transparency.

Yet, we were still struck by what we uncovered. Drawing on AACRAO’s broad research base, the LEARN Commission reviewed national transfer student outcomes data, institutional survey insights and findings from qualitative studies to assemble a full picture of the many challenges, untapped potential and missed opportunities that abound. The public can access the full set of green papers that guided our work on the commission’s webpage.

Based on the evidence, we reached an important conclusion: Learning evaluation is working exactly as it was designed—to control and limit credential-applicable credit because of the assumption that some learning is inherently of lesser quality.

Thus, any effort to change learning evaluation requires a collective willingness to confront the unspoken norms that regularly devalue certain types of learning, including what community college students and adult learners bring to the table. Focusing on structural change (i.e., changing policies and resource flows) alone without considering relational and transformational change (i.e., changes in human relationships, power dynamics and mental modes) will not shift the conditions that hold the status quo in place.

The LEARN Commission calls on institutions and systems to start with a shift in mindsets: All involved should seek to maximize credential applicability and embrace the assumption that a learner is prepared for additional education unless proven otherwise. We outline specific recommendations to make this significant shift, including:
1. Base decisions to award and apply credit on learning outcomes alignment of at least 70 percent, without invoking additional criteria. Additional criteria do little to preserve academic quality and could introduce bias.
2. When learning outcomes do not overlap by at least 70 percent, prioritize evidence of whether learners are prepared enough for subsequent coursework and provide appropriate support to promote student success, as needed.
3. Collect and use student outcome data to continually refine evaluation processes, learning outcome goals, curricular pathways, classroom pedagogy and student support services.
4. Once an institution decides to award and apply credit, that decision should set a precedent for all future learners (unless substantive curricular changes occur).
An additional set of 10 recommendations that accompany these addresses the elements of strong institutional policy design and resource allocations needed to make this shift in practice. The report outlines ways that institutions, systems and states are advancing these ideas in the real world to provide further guidance on where we can start.

And, while we recognize the significant power and decision-making authority that institutional, state and system leaders already hold, we also recognize that for institutions to accelerate this work at scale, we must activate other stakeholders across the full ecosystem—including policymakers, higher education associations and technical assistance providers, private philanthropy, and institutional accreditors. The report discusses three specific levers to do so:
1. Enhancing student data and technology systems
2. Investing in human capital
3. Building supportive policy conditions
We invite all stakeholders to read the report and, in the months ahead, will ask how we can partner to support your efforts to make change.

The LEARN Commission is convened by AACRAO and Sova as part of the Beyond Transfer initiative. The LEARN Commission and Beyond Transfer are generously supported by Ascendium Education Group, ECMC Foundation and the Kresge Foundation.
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December 11, 2025
Texas Tech Gathers Info on Race, Gender Course Content

Once faculty submit their responses, they will be compiled into spreadsheets by college, which department chairs and deans will review.

raclro/iStock/Getty Images

As promised in a memo from the chancellor earlier this month, some Texas Tech University system faculty members were asked this week to report whether any course they teach “advocates for or promotes” specific race, gender or sexual identities. It is the latest step in a sweeping curricular review focused on limiting discussion of transgender identity, racism and sexuality across the five-campus public system.

By 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 22, faculty members at Angelo State University must fill out a survey for each class they teach. In addition to the course title and reference number, the survey asks the following questions: “Does this course include any content that advocates for or promotes race- or sex-based prejudice, as defined in the Chancellor’s memorandum? Does this course include any content that recognizes or discusses more than two sexes (male and female), or addresses gender identity beyond what is recognized under state and federal law? Does this course include any content related to sexual orientation?”

If a faculty member answers yes to any of those questions, they are then prompted to answer, “What is the course material required for? Check all that apply,” and select from the options “professional licensure/certification,” “accreditation,” “patient/client care” and “other.” Faculty must also provide a justification statement to support their response and are asked to “be as specific as possible.”

Once faculty submit their responses, they will be compiled into spreadsheets by college, which department chairs and deans will review. They then must report the outcomes to the president and provost, Angelo State University provost Don Topliff said in an email to all faculty. “Faculty will be notified of outcomes after approval,” he wrote. It is unclear exactly what curricular changes the outcomes will prompt.

Faculty at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center received a similar email this week, a faculty member told Inside Higher Ed. But instead of filling out a survey, they are being asked to enter the same information directly into a spreadsheet. A faculty member at Texas Tech’s flagship campus in Lubbock said faculty there have yet to receive any information beyond the chancellor’s Dec. 1 memo. Spokespeople for the Texas Tech system did not answer Inside Higher Ed’s questions about whether faculty at the remaining two institutions—Midwestern State University and Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso—received a survey.

“Across the System, institutions are expected to follow the established course content review process. As outlined in the Chancellor’s December 1 memorandum, department chairs and deans will review any materials used locally, with outcomes shared with the Provost and President to ensure consistency moving forward,” a spokesperson wrote in an email.

In an email about the survey to his colleagues in the Angelo State history department, chair Jason Pierce encouraged them to answer no for all three questions.

“When I filled those forms out, I put ‘no’ for all of my classes, because I do not think talking about any of these issues is advocacy or promotion,” Pierce told Inside Higher Ed. “Also, in my history from the Civil War to present class, there is no way to not talk about Reconstruction, civil rights, the women’s movement. I mean, those are in every textbook … So I don’t feel like I even need to fill out a form saying that I’m going to talk about Reconstruction or civil rights or whatever, because I’m telling people what happened. I’m not advocating for a particular viewpoint.”

He linked the system’s crackdown to broader trends in the sector.

“There’s a deep distrust of higher ed right now across the political spectrum, but particularly on the right,” said Pierce. “There’s this misconception that the professors want to go out and brainwash their students, and I can say, as a history professor, I don’t want my students coming out of my class thinking like I think. I want them to come out of my class thinking for themselves.”

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December 11, 2025
International Students Afraid Under the Trump Administration

The vast majority of students surveyed reported feeling “moderately,” “very” or “extremely” fearful about their visa status.

Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | aapsky/iStock/Getty Images | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

A new national survey from Stop AAPI Hate, a coalition dedicated to fighting discrimination against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, found that international students are experiencing heightened fear and uncertainty under the Trump administration.

The survey, released Wednesday, drew on quantitative and qualitative data from 87 graduate and undergraduate international students from 36 U.S. colleges and universities.

It found that more than half of respondents, 53 percent, felt “not at all safe.” About 88 percent reported feeling a decreased sense of belonging and said they were holding back from political engagement, and 86 percent changed how they use social media out of fear. The majority, 90 percent, reported feeling “moderately,” “very” or “extremely” fearful about their visa status.

Students detailed their fears further in qualitative responses, including one that expressed fear of “being kidnapped by ICE without due process, being disappeared into the detention system, [and] being denied healthcare if detained.” Others described fears about family members being whisked away or about disrupted academic and career trajectories. Chinese students in particular raised concerns about being surveilled and targeted as a national security threat, invoking Japanese Americans’ incarceration during World War II, according to the report.

Respondents reported that campuses offered supports including mental health care, travel guidance and updates about student visa policies, but 48 percent said campuses didn’t provide guidance about how to complete their studies and 38 percent lacked legal aid resources.

Students also discouraged others from coming to the U.S. for their studies.

“Run, don’t come,” one student wrote.

“America is no longer the land for dreams,” said another.

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December 11, 2025
House Hearing Highlights Potential of Skills Transcripts

Republicans and Democrats showed rare agreement in a House committee meeting on Wednesday, putting their support behind digital skills transcripts that they say will make the economy more efficient and make education more skills-centered.

“This is a game changer,” said Rep. Burgess Owens, the Utah Republican who chairs the subcommittee.

The hearing shined a spotlight on the wonky world of learning and employment records, or LERs, and explored how to ensure they are available nationwide. It also progressed the conversation on workforce readiness, a bipartisan topic and an issue that has received heightened attention from House Republicans.

Students in the U.S. have access to more than 1.8 million credentials, but navigating those options can be challenging. At the same time, employers say they are struggling to find workers with the right skills for open jobs.

Although they are not a new idea, more associations, states and experts are turning to LERs as a way to better connect job seekers and employers. For instance, Western Governors University, which has had an LER platform since 2019, recently announced the WGU Achievement Wallet to help students track their skills and connect those to available jobs. A skills-based transcript is at the core of a new platform from the Educational Testing Service that Brandeis University and California State University campuses are piloting. To help boost adoption of LERs, the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers last year launched the LER Accelerator Coalition.

These LERs “enable career mobility based on proven ability, not pedigree,” Western Governors president Scott Pulsipher told lawmakers at the hearing.

“When readiness is signaled through verified skills, opportunities expand to include those who might have been overlooked,” he said. “Few things are more profoundly human than enabling individuals to pursue a self-determined life. LERs, while seemingly abstract, exist for that purpose. They translate what individuals know and can do into real opportunity.”

Other witnesses said Congress can better help grow LERs by providing funding and encouraging states to create them. They also want lawmakers to require common open data standards, so the LERs are transparent and can be used across platforms.

“LERs only matter if people can use them,” said Scott Cheney, the CEO of Credential Engine. “If they’re trapped in proprietary systems, they do little for learners, workers or employers.”

Hearings like this offer some insight into lawmakers’ priorities and can lead to legislation. Since passing a landmark bill to overhaul student loans, the House education committee has delved into college pricing, alleged bias in the Truman scholarship, innovation in higher ed and campus antisemitism.

For Republicans, the LERs are a way to build on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which expanded the Pell Grant to short-term job training programs, and to support efforts to drop degree requirements.

Owens noted that short-term credentials, work-based learning and apprenticeships are increasing “as we shift away from the ‘college-for-all’ mentality and toward a skills-first approach.”

“LERs are the future,” said Owens, who played a video he narrated that explained how digital transcripts work.

Democrats pointed to the need to help workers advance their skills and navigate the labor market, citing rising unemployment numbers and slow job growth.

“LERs have the potential to make our economy more efficient, more equitable and more productive,” said Rep. Alma Adams, a North Carolina Democrat who serves as the subcommittee’s ranking member. “Employers are becoming overwhelmed with job applications containing limited information about the candidates’ skills, all of which can be hard to verify. Far too many employers have fallen into the habit of requiring college degrees for jobs that do not necessarily require them, effectively shutting out talented and qualified individuals who have the skills but not the diploma.”

But Adams and other Democrats worried about the data privacy in these online systems and said they want to see safeguards to protect workers. They also want to guarantee that workers have control over their data.

“We must ensure that a shift to learning and employment records does not enable an infringement on worker rights, increase discrimination or widen achievement and income gaps,” Adams said.

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December 11, 2025
Who Benefits From Direct Admissions, in 5 Charts

Some direct-admissions programs admit all students who fit certain criteria, while others seek out students based on particular traits.

Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Prostock-Studio/iStock/Getty Images

Direct admissions, the practice by which colleges extend offers of admissions to students without them submitting an application, has become increasingly popular.

About 15 states now have their own programs, which typically involve extending admissions offers to qualifying high school seniors in the state—or, for some open-access institutions, to all graduating seniors. Meanwhile, a handful of private companies and nonprofits have launched platforms in recent years to allow institutions to send out offers to students around the country.

Such programs aim to help colleges boost enrollment and reach students who may otherwise not have applied to those institutions—and research shows that they’ve proven successful in those goals.

But what kinds of institutions utilize direct admissions and which students accept direct-admissions offers? Niche, a college rankings company whose direct admissions product launched as a pilot in 2022, shared data about its Class of 2029 direct-admissions enrollees with Inside Higher Ed, providing a glimpse into the demographics, majors and locations of those students.

“I think in this day and age of mobile, social media, AI—it’s just getting harder and harder to reach students and break through the noise,” said Luke Skurman, Niche’s CEO. “This is very in tune with [students’ expectations]. They’re used to pressing a button, having an Uber show up at their home, having food being delivered to their home. They like it being instantaneous. They like it being simple, transparent. I think there are institutions that really believe this is a natural evolution for this demographic.”

Over a million students received offers from the 145 participating institutions last year. That number is likely to grow this admissions cycle; over 160 partner institutions have already extended offers to over 770,000 students. (The Common App, which in 2021 launched its direct-admissions offering that focuses on first-generation and low- and middle-income students, reported that 119 participating universities extended offers last year to 733,000 students. This year, the number of institutions jumped to 213.)

But experts have noted that direct-admissions services run by private companies lack some of the benefits provided by state’s direct-admissions programs. Jennifer A. Delaney, an education professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who researches direct admissions, said in an interview that effective direct-admissions programs shouldn’t require students to take any steps to receive any admissions offers—including filling out a profile, as Niche requires.

Over all, enrollments through Niche’s platform this fall accounted for 11 percent of all enrollments at participating institutions, with each institution enrolling a median of 60 students through direct admissions. Inside Higher Ed broke it all down in five charts below.

Colleges admitted higher rates of nonwhite and first-gen students through direct admissions.

About 60 percent of students who enrolled through the Niche direct-admissions tool this year were students of color, while about 43 percent were first-generation. Among students at those same institutions who enrolled through other means, 48 percent were students of color and 34 percent were first-generation.

Colleges using direct admissions are mostly, but not exclusively, private.

Of the students who enrolled via Niche’s tool, a majority—69 percent—enrolled at private institutions.

Damien Snook, Niche’s director of product analytics, said that the types of institutions that use the service range significantly from flagship institutions, albeit generally in smaller states, down to tiny religious colleges. Most are not selective but aren’t open access, either.

“What we see from our direct-admissions partner more or less mirrors national trends. We do kind of meet that Goldilocks zone,” he said.

At public institutions, enrollments from direct admissions made up a slightly smaller share—8 percent—of new fall 2025 enrollments compared to 12 percent among private institutions.

Where is direct admissions most popular?

California, Pennsylvania and Texas are the most common states for direct-admissions enrollees to hail from. That statistic isn’t entirely surprising, considering they are among the most populous states. They’re also the three most popular destinations for direct-admissions students, though Pennsylvania ranks higher than California on that list.

Some of the areas where the product has been most successful, such as the Midwest, are where institutions that piloted and beta tested the tool found success, Snook said. They’re also areas that are projected to see decreased numbers of high school graduates in the coming years, meaning institutions may be looking to draw students from other areas of the country, which Niche’s tool allows them to do.

Health majors reign supreme, but direct admissions students span a variety of majors.

Unlike state direct-admissions programs, colleges on Niche’s platform can pick and choose students by attributes like intended major or location.

“Some lean into the territories that they’re already established in, so they’ll search for students in their state, or they’ll lean into ‘I’m a tech school and I’m looking for students that are interested in STEM majors.’ But we also have institutions that do the opposite, who say, ‘We’re good at recruiting in our backyard, but where we really want help is our secondary market,’” said Snook.

The trends in students’ majors mirror overall, national data trends, with the Niche data showing a slight decline in those studying computer science and an increase in those pursuing health degrees.

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December 11, 2025
Employers Confident in How Higher Ed Is Preparing Students

Employers prefer to hire graduates who have participated in applied, hands-on experiences.

Jason Ardan/The Citizens’ Voice/Getty Images

While fewer than half of Americans have confidence in higher education, new data shows that 85 percent of employers believe colleges and universities are adequately preparing students for the workforce. And they especially value degrees from institutions that emphasize constructive dialogue and disagreement.

Those are two of the big takeaways from “The Agility Imperative: How Employers View Preparation for an Uncertain Future,” a new report the American Association of Colleges and Universities published Thursday. In the ninth iteration of the report since 2006, the group commissioned Morning Consult to survey 1,030 executives and hiring managers in August about their attitudes toward higher education.

“This is our strongest case yet that the separation between workforce and civic skills is false,” said Ashley Finley, author of the report and vice president for research at AAC&U. “In the face of a public narrative that questions the value of college education, employers are higher education’s biggest fans. They value the ways in which colleges are preparing students to be nimble and agile for an uncertain future.”

‘Avoiding Groupthink’

According to the survey, 94 percent of employers said it’s equally important for colleges to prepare a skilled and educated workforce and to help students become informed citizens; 92 percent said it’s also important for colleges to create an environment where students of all backgrounds feel supported and to help them engage with and serve their communities. And 96 percent of employers said it’s useful for college graduates to be able to engage in constructive dialogue across disagreement; 80 percent are confident colleges and universities are helping students develop those skills.

“Employers want people who can grapple with differences of opinion because they know that strengthens the workplace,” Finley said. “Diverse teams are often the most effective because it’s through the process of disagreement that they arrive at better solutions by avoiding groupthink.”

Those results come at a time of intensified scrutiny and skepticism about the value of higher education from both the general public and policymakers. According to a survey the Pew Research Center published in October, 70 percent of Americans believe higher education is generally “going in the wrong direction,” citing high costs, poor preparation for the job market and lackluster development of students’ critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

In addition to focusing on career and technical education and using postgraduation earnings as the primary metric of a degree’s value, the Trump administration and its allies in Congress and state legislatures are also policing university curricula and faculty speech. Over the past year, political pressure has led numerous institutions—including Texas A&M University and the University of Oklahoma—to suspend or fire faculty and administrators who made comments that conflict with certain conservative viewpoints on race, gender and other topics.

But that’s not the type of learning environment most employers, regardless of political affiliation or age, want graduates to come from, according to the report.

Eighty-five percent of employers—including 90 percent of Democrats, 75 percent of Independents, 83 percent of Republicans, 87 percent of those under age 40 and 74 percent of those over age 50—said they would look more favorably upon a degree from an institution known for respecting diverse perspectives on political, economic and social issues in the curriculum. Additionally, 82 percent of respondents—including 83 percent of Democrats, 78 percent of Independents, 83 percent of Republicans, 85 percent of those under age 40 and 74 percent over age 50—said they would look more favorably upon a degree from an institution that’s not subject to government restrictions on what students learn and discuss.

The share of employers who strongly agreed with those statements has also increased by several percentage points since 2023, when the previous iteration of the survey asked the same questions.

“So much of workforce preparedness in the next few decades is going to involve durable skills amid the rapid proliferation of artificial intelligence,” Lynn Pasquerella, president of AAC&U, said. “We need to train individuals who can engage across differences and bring skills, competencies and dispositions computers can’t bring. That involves directly the capacity to engage with others who are different from oneself.”

In addition to valuing degrees that promote open inquiry, more than three-quarters of employers said they were more likely to hire graduates who participated in applied, hands-on experiences while in college, including internships, holding leadership roles or working on community-based projects. And 81 percent of employers said microcredentials are also valuable when they’re making hiring decisions.

“Employers are looking for more than just transcripts. They want portfolios and demonstrations of applied skills and competencies,” Pasquerella said. “The more colleges can do to provide a more comprehensive, complete picture of students’ abilities inside and outside the classroom, the more confidence they can create with employers.”

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December 11, 2025