Tag: News

  • The NIH Policy Holding Researchers “Hostage”

    The NIH Policy Holding Researchers “Hostage”

    Rachael Sirianni is one of the thousands of research scientists whose work has been decimated by the Trump administration’s massive cuts to the National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies.

    “My lab is crumbling,” said the pediatric brain cancer researcher, who works at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School. “Over the course of the last eight months, I’ve had to shutter more than half of my research program.”

    At the same time, she has a backlog of papers she’s still trying to get published in journals that are the best fit for her research and career, including several that charge thousands in fees to make the paper free to access. And if she wants her work to comply with a new NIH policy to expedite public access to federally funded research—part of the agency’s effort to restore trust in science, it says—she may have to start paying even more.

    The 2024 Public Access Policy, which took effect July 1, requires federally funded researchers to deposit their accepted peer-reviewed article manuscript into an open-access repository, such as the NIH-managed PubMed Central, immediately after a journal accepts it for publication. But researchers are reporting that some journals, including at least several high-impact titles owned by Elsevier, Wiley and Springer—are charging authors anywhere from $2,000 to more than $10,000 in article processing charges (APCs) to make their work immediately accessible.

    While researchers can use their NIH grants to pay for APCs, that’s hard for some to justify in such a precarious funding environment.

    “If I had full access to the institutional dollars that normally support my research program, or if I really believed that that grant that scored well is eventually going to get funded, I could risk my research dollars on these open-access fees,” Sirianni said. “But because of the trauma that the Trump administration is imposing on scientists across the country, we are faced with impossible decisions. Do we dedicate our money to the experiments? Do we maintain our research personnel? Do we comply with open-access fees?”

    Open-access advocates and experts say that predicament is exposing the limits of the government’s ability to rein in the $19 billion scholarly publishing industry, which is fueled by academic incentive structures that reward researchers for publishing frequently in widely cited, prestigious journals. Meanwhile, the publishing industry—which has long opposed immediate open access in part because it threatens subscription-dependent business models—says the rollout of the policy gives them no choice but to charge APCs.

    Zero Embargo

    The 2024 policy replaces the 2008 Public Access Policy, which allowed publishers to embargo new peer-reviewed federally funded research articles for 12 months before making them publicly available. That embargo period allowed publishers to turn a profit from selling academic libraries subscriptions to exclusive content; authors who wanted to make their papers publicly accessible before the embargo was lifted typically paid an APC.

    The government’s goal in lifting the embargo was to promote “equity and advance the work of restoring the public’s trust in Government science, and to advance American scientific leadership,” Alondra Nelson, the former acting director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, wrote in a 2022 memo bearing her name. “A federal public access policy consistent with our values of equal opportunity must allow for broad and expeditious sharing of federally funded research—and must allow all Americans to benefit from the returns on our research and development investments without delay.”

    Although the Biden administration finalized the policy, the Trump administration is carrying it forward. It was set to take effect across federal agencies on Dec. 31, but NIH director Jay Bhattacharya announced in April that he was implementing it six months ahead of schedule to promote “maximum transparency.”

    Although Sirianni supports the spirit of NIH’s new open-access policy, she’s worried that high APCs will deter researchers from submitting their work to influential journals that might otherwise be a good fit, to the detriment of the scientific literature.

    “There’s absolutely going to be a lot of work that doesn’t get published or gets published in the wrong journal,” Sirianni said. “This policy is harming scientists. Instead of ensuring that research dollars are invested in providing knowledge to the scientific community and to the public, those dollars will be spent on feeding giant publishing corporations more money.”

    ‘Not Sustainable’?

    However, publishers say the NIH’s zero-embargo policy is forcing them to recoup lost subscription revenue through APCs to sustain operational costs, including article selection, curation, peer and editorial review, publication, archiving, and maintenance.

    “We are unable to support approaches that aim to make subscription articles immediately and freely available, which are not sustainable in the long term given they undermine the subscription model on which they depend,” an Elsevier spokesperson said in an email to Inside Higher Ed.

    “The best method for addressing issues of cost in publication is through a vibrant, competitive, and dynamic publishing marketplace with maximum author choice, including fee-based public access and read-and-publish agreements,” Carl Maxwell, senior vice president of public policy for the Association of American Publishers, who lobbied against the zero-embargo policy, wrote in an email. “We don’t think it’s a good idea to compel researchers to use a one-size-fits-all open access business model that has the potential to require NIH-funded researchers to pay out of pocket to fund the peer review process, in some cases harming their ability to communicate their research results to the scientific community and the general public.”

    Caroline Sutton, CEO for the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers, added that researchers’ frustration with the NIH’s new open-access policy “reveals one of the real human impacts of well-intentioned policies that do not fully consider the operational realities of the research ecosystem.”

    It also raises long-standing questions about how to sustain that ecosystem.

    “Should the responsibility for funding this work lie with the funder? With the research or institutional library? Should publishers not be compensated?” she wrote in an email. “And how can the critical system of checks and balances—which must be resourced—endure if it is not sustainably funded?”

    But another sector sustaining the scientific publishing industry is the faculty who produce and peer review research for little to no financial compensation. The most productive are often rewarded instead with tenure, promotion and cachet.

    Holding Articles ‘Hostage’

    While the NIH policy doesn’t require authors to publish in journals that charge APCs—plenty of reputable, fully open-access journals exist—researchers say where they publish matters to their careers. At most universities, frequently publishing research in prestigious, high-impact journals—including many with hefty APCs—carries more weight with tenure and review committees than publishing in more obscure journals.

    But researchers aren’t always clear on a journal’s APC guidelines until they get through the review process and are asked to pay open-access fees to comply with the NIH policy, Rachel Widome, a public health professor at the University of Minnesota, told Inside Higher Ed. She withdrew an article from the Elsevier-owned Sleep Health on how school start times impact adolescents after she realized she’d have to pay a $2,500 fee to upload her accepted manuscript to PubMed Central in compliance with NIH policy.

    “When that happens, they’re holding your article hostage,” she said. “Do you start from scratch and submit it to a new journal? It can take six to nine months to go through another review.”

    She ended up resubmitting the article to Sleep Health after her NIH grant ended, exempting her from the zero-embargo policy. Although “time has been wasted,” she said the APCs stand to hurt early-career scientists the most. “It’s so critical that they establish a publication record,” Widome said. “If the options of which journals they can submit to are really limited [because of APCs], that hurts their chances of getting her research out and launching her career.”

    ‘Valuing Prestige’

    But those academic incentive structures have also emboldened publishers to levy APCs in response to the NIH’s zero-embargo policy, said Dave Hansen, executive director of the Authors Alliance, a California-based nonprofit that supports authors in disseminating their work.

    “So much of the system is wrapped around valuing prestige journals that are published by some of these bigger commercial publishers. That’s really hard for even a big institution like the NIH to nudge researchers away from,” Hansen said, adding that the NIH could de-emphasize prestige factors when evaluating researchers. At the same time, “a lot of publishers recognize that there’s a massive amount of federal funding that they can now demand access to because of this new federal policy.”

    The zero-embargo policy isn’t the NIH’s only attempt to regulate the scientific publishing industry. This summer, Bhattacharya proposed capping APCs to weaken the market power of publishers, dilute the scientific elite and “make science accessible not only to the public but also to the broader scientific community, while ending perverse incentives that don’t benefit taxpayers,” he said. But critics say the plan is neither comprehensive enough to dismantle academic incentive structures, nor likely to substantially lower APCs.

    And the frustration researchers are experiencing in the early days of the NIH’s new zero-embargo access policy—which was crafted with some of the same goals as the NIH’s proposed APC caps—is already offering support for those predictions.

    “The NIH public-access policy applies to a vast amount of research, but it’s also just a percentage of the overall landscape. There are a number of players here, including the funders, researchers, institutions, publishers and libraries,” said Katie Funk, former program manager for PubMed Central, who helped develop the zero-embargo policy.

    “Without addressing the whole system, it just causes confusion,” she added. “Larger conversations need to be had about the costs of publishing. It’s not transparent and it’s pervading the whole system.”

    (This article has been updated to correct the name of the UMass medical school.)

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  • 4 ways AI can make your PD more effective

    4 ways AI can make your PD more effective

    Key points:

    If you lead professional learning, whether as a school leader or PD facilitator, your goal is to make each session relevant, engaging, and lasting. AI can help you get there by streamlining prep, differentiating for diverse learners, combining follow-ups with accessibility for absentees, and turning feedback into actionable improvements.

    1. Streamline prep

    Preparing PD can take hours as you move between drafting agendas, building slides, writing handouts, and finding the right examples. For many facilitators, the preparation phase becomes a race against time, leaving less room for creativity and interaction. The challenge is not only to create materials, but to design them so they are relevant to the audience and aligned with clear learning goals.

    AI can help by taking the raw information you provide–your session objectives, focus area, and audience details–and producing a solid first draft of your session materials. This may include a structured agenda, a concise session description, refined learning objectives, a curated resource list, and even a presentation deck with placeholder slides and talking points. Instead of starting from scratch, you begin with a framework that you can adapt for tone, style, and participant needs.

    AI quick start:

    • Fine-tune your PD session objectives or description so they align with learning goals and audience needs.
    • Design engaging PD slides that support active learning and discussion.
    • Create custom visuals to illustrate key concepts and examples for your PD session.

    2. Differentiate adult learning

    Educators bring different levels of expertise, roles, and learning preferences to PD. AI can go beyond sorting participants into groups; it can analyze pre-session survey data to identify common challenges, preferred formats, and specific areas of curiosity. With this insight, you can design activities that meet everyone’s needs while keeping the group moving forward together.

    For instance, an AI analysis of survey results might reveal that one group wants practical, ready-to-use classroom strategies while another is interested in deepening their understanding of instructional frameworks. You can then create choice-based sessions or breakout activities that address both needs, allowing participants to select the format that works best for them. This targeted approach makes PD more relevant and increases engagement because participants see their own goals reflected in the design.

    AI quick start:

    • Create a pre-session survey form to collect participant goals, roles, and preferences.
    • Analyze survey responses qualitatively to identify trends or themes.
    • Develop differentiated activities and resources for each participant group.

    3. Make PD accessible for those who miss it

    Even the most engaging PD can lose its impact without reinforcement, and some participants will inevitably miss the live session. Illness, scheduling conflicts, and urgent school needs happen. Without intentional follow-up, these absences can create gaps in knowledge and skills that affect team performance.

    AI can help close these gaps by turning your agenda, notes, or recordings into follow-up materials that recap key ideas, highlight next steps, and provide easy access to resources. This ensures that all educators, regardless of whether they attended, can engage with the same content and apply it in their work.

    Imagine hosting a PD session on integrating literacy strategies across the curriculum. Several teachers cannot attend due to testing responsibilities. By using AI to transcribe the recording, produce a well-organized summary, and embed links to articles and templates, you give absent staff members a clear path to catch up. You can also create a short bridge-to-practice activity that both attendees and absentees complete, so everyone comes to the next session prepared.

    This approach not only supports ongoing learning but also reinforces a culture of equity in professional development, where everyone has access to the same high-quality materials and expectations. Over time, storing these AI-generated summaries and resources in a shared space can create an accessible PD archive that benefits the entire organization.

    AI quick start:

    • Transcribe your PD session recording for a complete text record.
    • Summarize the content into a clear, concise recap with next steps.
    • Integrate links to resources and bridge-to-practice activities so all participants can act on the learning.

    4. Turn participant feedback into action

    Open-ended survey responses are valuable, but analyzing them can be time-consuming. AI can code and group feedback so you can quickly identify trends and make informed changes before your next session.

    For example, AI might cluster dozens of survey comments into themes such as “more classroom examples,” “more time for practice,” or “deeper technology integration.” Instead of reading through each comment manually, you receive a concise report that highlights key priorities. You can then use this information to adjust your content, pacing, or format to better meet participants’ needs.

    By integrating this kind of rapid analysis into your PD process, you create a feedback loop that keeps your sessions evolving and responsive. Over time, this builds trust among participants, who see that their input is valued and acted upon.

    AI quick start:

    • Compile and organize participant feedback into a single dataset.
    • Categorize comments into clear, actionable themes.
    • Summarize insights to highlight priority areas for improvement.

    Final word

    AI will not replace your skill as a facilitator, but it can strengthen the entire PD cycle from planning and delivery to post-session coaching, accessibility, and data analysis. By taking on repetitive, time-intensive tasks, AI allows you to focus on creating experiences that are engaging, relevant, and equitable.

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  • Why Close Bucknell University Press? (opinion)

    Why Close Bucknell University Press? (opinion)

    In an Aug. 14 email, Bucknell University provost Wendy Sternberg notified the university community that Bucknell University Press would cease to exist at the end of the academic year. Without consulting BUP’s faculty editorial board, which oversees the press and falls under the auspices of the provost’s office, or Bucknell’s faculty or staff at large, the decision was rendered a fait accompli that blindsided the local Bucknell community as well as past, present and prospective BUP authors, editors and contributors.

    As might be inferred, the decision to close a university press has wide-ranging implications for not only the home institution and its reputation within the academic community but for the pursuit of intellectualism and critical inquiry in academia and beyond.

    Established in 1968, BUP has operated continuously for nearly 60 years, publishing new work in the humanities and social sciences for specialists, students and general readers. Despite its relatively small size, operating only with 2.5 staff positions and publishing about 20 books per year, Bucknell’s press has continued to punch above its weight, as testimonials from BUP authors, editors and directors, past and present, affirm.

    Petitions to prevent BUP’s closure have circulated globally, such as those by the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies and the Goethe Society of North America, and the closure has been addressed by venues like Publishers Weekly, The Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed. A petition on campus disseminated by members of BUP’s faculty editorial board gathered signatures from hundreds unaffiliated with the university, as well as more than 125 of the voting faculty members at Bucknell, in what assuredly was a signal to Bucknell administrators and the Board of Trustees to reconsider.

    But they have not.

    As Sternberg wrote, the university was compelled to close BUP to refocus “university resources on our student-centered mission.” The email moreover claims that BUP’s “primary mission supports the scholarly community, and not Bucknell undergraduates.”

    This rationale misunderstands the actual work of university presses, which have long trained students for careers in editing and publishing in academic presses, trade publishers and beyond—as noted by testimonials from Bucknell alumni published by The H-Net Book Channel. It likewise does not see our undergraduates as part of the scholarly community—a head-scratching implication given that Bucknell obtained the Carnegie classification system’s new Research Colleges and Universities designation this year because of its research activity, especially undergraduate research. Even more, it brazenly disregards the reality that faculty research informs classroom teaching.

    In the more than three months that have passed since Sternberg’s notice of closure, Bucknell University administrators, especially Sternberg and President John Bravman, have been flooded with personal letters and emails cautioning against this myopic decision. Peter M. Berkery Jr., executive director of the Association of University Presses, wrote to the administration in August extending an offer to collaborate on a press review. This offer has gone ignored. Berkery also noted in his letter that a number of universities that have announced their intent to close their presses in recent years ended up reversing course. (Notable reversals include the University of Akron Press, the University of Missouri Press and Stanford University Press, where the university administration threatened to withdraw the press’s $1.7 million annual subsidy before backing away from the plan.)

    Berkery added that “in still more cases—including Amherst College, Lever Press, West Point, University of Vermont, the University of Wyoming—institutions of higher education serving a wide remit of students and fields launched new university presses and university imprints, finding that this initiative served their students, faculty, and wider communities in direct and invaluable ways.”

    Bucknell administration, however, has remained steadfast in its determination to close BUP and impervious to outcry from the academic community and even alumni. In November, Bucknell faculty approved a motion, presented by myself and three other members of the faculty editorial board, that proposes to evaluate BUP’s future through channels of shared governance that were not previously consulted—even flouted. It calls for the establishment of an ad hoc committee, peopled by Sternberg, the BUP director and several faculty representatives, charged with “determin[ing] a future for the Bucknell University Press that balances fiscal concerns with intellectual and academic values.” The motion stipulates that the committee will present its findings at the February faculty meeting. Of course, the bindingness of these findings remains suspect, as does the future of shared governance nationwide.

    Towards the conclusion of Sternberg’s August notice, she wrote, “It is important to note that the door remains open to alternative paths forward for the Bucknell Press at this time. I believe there is great potential for the press to be reimagined in a way that supports undergraduate education — perhaps one that promotes scholarly accomplishments of Bucknell students and faculty and that offers professional preparation for students who seek a career in the publishing world. The academic planning process that is unfolding over this academic year will provide a venue for considering such possibilities.”

    While BUP already does these things (as alumni and faculty attest), and this reimagining seems to again misunderstand the premise and goals of a university press, the motion approved by the faculty seeks to make good on Sternberg’s claim to envisage “alternative paths forward” to keep BUP’s doors open, even if such a statement is merely administrative lip service.

    Though the prospective closure of BUP may appear a blip on the radar of a fast-changing landscape of higher education, it is yet another warning bell signaling the erosions of shared governance on campuses nationwide. Indeed, the American Association of University Professors’ Policy Documents and Reports (colloquially known as the Redbook) details how the “business-ification” of the university has caused ruptures within shared governance that have ultimately alienated faculty and pitted administrators versus faculty in what may appear a power vacuum: “The involvement of faculty in governance is not a grab for power, special pleading, or partisanship, but action in the best interests of the academic institutions themselves.”

    Shared governance, the Redbook continues, promises to be a “potential force for fairness and equity for parties that are too often assumed to be at odds.” But fairness and equity can only be achieved at places like Bucknell if shared governance is preserved and stakeholders are consulted and considered in good faith.

    Even more, as the motion passed by the faculty makes clear, while some may believe a university press to be a bespoke ornament, BUP has long been integral to the service and scholarship completed by Bucknell faculty and deeply connected to the institution’s intellectual history. And this is to say nothing of the ways that BUP has dedicated itself to supporting the intellectual and creative careers of academics around the globe for the last 60 years. In a moment in time marked by the determination to unravel both shared governance and academic freedom on college campuses, BUP can’t help but seem part of a larger zeitgeist of academia’s uncertain, seismic shifting.

    Yet there’s something distinct about the Bucknell situation in that it is entirely self-inflicted. Bucknell is not buckling under pressure from the federal government; neither has it been singled out for an ultimatum/gilded carrot (depending on how one sees it) like those extended under the Trump administration’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.” It has not suffered higher taxes on its endowment, nor the retraction of large-scale federal funding. The austerity mentality hawked by the administration is one based on a larger trend in which humanistic and social scientific inquiry is deprivileged and the ethos of the liberal arts abandoned, even at those places that seek to brand themselves as such. BUP has become the sacrificial lamb that was meant to succumb to its slaughter silently.

    If BUP had represented an insolvent or derelict agent on campus or within the academic community, perhaps the publicity arising from its intended closure would not set about such shock waves. However, that is not the case. Instead, the intention to shutter BUP is a thermometer, if not a klaxon (to mix metaphors), that lays bare a reality in which university presses and the intellectual enterprises they champion are repeatedly under threat. We must not acquiesce to these demanded erasures.

    Jeremy Chow is the National Endowment for the Humanities Chair in the Humanities and associate professor of English at Bucknell University and chair of the Bucknell University Press faculty editorial board.

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  • The Great American University Shakedown

    The Great American University Shakedown

    With each new resolution agreement, it becomes clearer that the Trump administration intends to base the government’s relationship with higher education on extortion. In its recently cut deal, Northwestern University will pay the Treasury $75 million in exchange for about $800 million in congressionally approved research funding it had already secured. NU now joins Columbia on the list of institutions that have paid fees to the federal government—Columbia’s deal included a $200 million payment to the Treasury over three years.

    In the grand scheme of things, $75 million is chump change for Northwestern. It’s a fraction of the research funding that was at risk and barely makes a dent in the institution’s $14.3 billion endowment. It’s less than two months’ worth of the up to $40 million the institution said it was paying every month to supplement lost research funding. The payment was, according to interim president Henry Bienen, “the best and most certain method to restore our federal funding, both now and in the future.”

    Part of that is likely true. Litigation would have taken years and cost many more millions. But nothing in the agreement precludes the government from leveraging federal research funding to extract certain political wins from the university again. The government didn’t even need evidence Northwestern violated any federal laws to revoke its federal funding. Officials offered no conclusions from the three investigations into antisemitism on campus the Departments of Education, Justice and Health and Human Services launched. With the punitive withholding of federal funds, the institution is being punished before it’s proven guilty. As Andrew Gillen, a scholar at the Cato Institute put it, “Much like the Queen in Alice in Wonderland who said, ‘Sentence first—verdict afterwards.’”

    Before this administration, rarely did OCR investigations require institutions to pay money to the government. The resolutions focused mainly on training and improving processes at the university in question. By contrast, the agreements the Trump administration has reached with elite, research-focused universities harm the institution as well as the country. Northwestern, Columbia, Brown and others might have their funding back, but they’re now weighed down by even greater compliance burdens.

    Northwestern has to report admissions data on every student who applies, is admitted and enrolls; socialize international students on the norms of campus life; and make sure nobody is wearing a face mask to conceal their identity. After cutting more than 400 jobs in July, Northwestern now has fewer people around campus to take over additional reporting duty. This is how the administration wants our leading research institutions to spend their time. And while U.S. institutions process paperwork and fight to have funding restored, China sprints ahead in artificial intelligence, robotics and innovation.

    Precedent for paying fines in government settlements exists for other sectors, but those partly fund solutions to problems. Purdue Pharma, for example, paid local and state governments to fund opioid treatment, prevention and recovery services. In its multibillion-dollar settlement with the U.S. government over cheating on emissions tests, Volkswagen paid billions of dollars to fund clean energy initiatives and electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Even Columbia in its settlement agreed to pay an additional $21 million to compensate employees who may have experienced antisemitism on campus after Oct. 7, 2023. Northwestern’s millions simply disappear into Treasury’s coffers and do nothing to combat antisemitism in higher ed.

    NU won’t be the last institution the government attempts to force into a settlement. This summer it demanded UCLA, a public institution, pay $1.2 billion as part of a settlement to unfreeze millions in research funds. Harvard’s heated legal battle for its funding rages on, and research funds remain frozen for Duke and Princeton.

    These resolutions are a strong indicator of how the administration wants its relationship with research institutions to be—politically self-serving, one-sided and fear-based. Institutions could choose to fight, but mounting expensive legal battles without millions of research dollars isn’t really a choice at all. The agreements might be an offer universities can’t refuse.

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  • Hartwick, Duquesne, Iowa State and More

    Hartwick, Duquesne, Iowa State and More

    Laurel Bongiorno, vice president for academic affairs and provost at Hartwick College in New York, has been named president of Hartwick, effective July 1, 2026.

    David Cook, president of North Dakota State University, has been appointed president of Iowa State University, effective March 1, 2026.

    David Dausey, provost of Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, will become president of the institution on July 1, 2026.

    Terence Finley, vice president and chief operating officer at Harris-Stowe State University in St. Louis, has been selected president of Corning Community College, part of the State University of New York system, effective Jan. 2, 2026.

    Jennifer Glowienka, co–interim president of Carroll College in Montana, has been named president of the college, effective July 1, 2026.

    Alan LaFave, president of Valley City State University in North Dakota, has been appointed president of Northern State University in South Dakota, starting in January.

    Carolyn Noll Sorg, vice president for enrollment and marketing at John Carroll University in Ohio, has been appointed president of the university, effective June 1, 2026.

    Jamilyn Penn, vice president of student services at Highline College in Washington, has been named acting president of the institution, effective immediately.

    John Schol, retired bishop of the United Methodists in Greater New Jersey, has been selected as president of Centenary University, effective Dec. 1.

    Michael Spagna, interim president of California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, has been appointed president of Sonoma State University, also part of the CSU system, effective Jan. 20, 2026.

    Susan Stuebner, interim president of Simpson College in Iowa, has been named the university’s permanent president, effective immediately.

    Gregory Tomso, who most recently served as vice president of academic engagement and student affairs for the University of West Florida, will become president of St. Cloud State University, part of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system, effective Jan. 5, 2026.

    Mary Ann Villarreal, vice president for institutional excellence at the American Association of Colleges and Universities, has been appointed interim president of California State University, Dominguez Hills, effective Jan. 1, 2026.

    David Whitlock, interim president of Southeastern Oklahoma State University, has been appointed permanent president of the institution, effective immediately.

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  • Tribal Colleges Brace for Shift to Interior Department

    Tribal Colleges Brace for Shift to Interior Department

    As the U.S. Department of the Interior prepares to take on a greater role in administering federal funding for tribal colleges, institutional leaders fear financial uncertainty and losing long-standing trust with the Education Department.

    The grant program is one of dozens the Education Department reshuffled to other federal agencies late last month in yet another effort by Secretary Linda McMahon to trim down its duties and ultimately dismantle the department. Through an interagency agreement, the Department of the Interior will now manage tribal colleges’ Title III funding, while ED retains oversight and policymaking responsibilities, according to an Education Department announcement.

    Trump administration officials argue the move makes sense. The Department of the Interior, home to the Bureau of Indian Education, already oversees tribal K–12 schools and two tribal higher ed institutions, Haskell Indian Nations University in Kansas and Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute in New Mexico. The Department of the Interior also already administers higher education scholarships for Native students and other grant funding for tribal colleges.

    Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum said in the announcement that his department will assume administrative responsibilities “for enhancing Indian education programs, streamlining operations, and refocusing efforts to better serve Native youth and adults across the nation.”

    The American Indian Higher Education Consortium said in a statement that it’s monitoring the policy shift and plans to work closely with the Department of the Interior “to ensure stability and continuity” for institutions and their students.

    “AIHEC will continue to advocate for approaches that uphold the federal government’s trust and treaty obligations to Tribal Nations and protect the vital role of TCUs in advancing Tribal sovereignty and student success,” the statement read.

    Concerns and Questions

    Despite reassurances, tribal college leaders are leery of the upcoming change.

    Stephen Schoonmaker, president of Tohono O’odham Community College in Arizona, said he understands the logic of the shift, given tribal colleges already have a strong relationship with the Bureau of Indian Education.

    But the department also proposed cutting more than 80 percent of tribal colleges’ funding earlier this year, from roughly $127 million last year to about $22 million this year.

    Congress didn’t approve the cut, but the proposal “was an existential threat to tribal colleges,” Schoonmaker said.

    He believes institutions like his are safest when they have grants coming from multiple federal agencies. That way, if one agency cuts funding, there are still federal dollars flowing in from elsewhere.

    “Putting everything under one basket that could be just cut all at once is not reassuring,” he said.

    Even though he’s had positive experiences working with the BIE, he said he’s jarred by the uncertainty.

    “With this administration, there is a propensity to shuffle things around and make a flurry of proposals, some of which get headway, some of which get dropped almost immediately,” Schoonmaker said, “and it makes it challenging to plan, to ensure for our students and for our employees and for our communities that we serve that the way we’ve been structured, the way that the trust and treaty obligations work … will continue to be honored.”

    The administration hasn’t shared a transition plan with tribal college leaders, adding to their worries, said Chris Caldwell, president of the College of Menominee Nation in Wisconsin.

    According to Caldwell, tribal college leaders are most concerned about the future of the funding mechanisms and support that has historically come from the Department of Education. “We want to make sure that those are retained or even increased,” Caldwell said.

    He also questions how much the BIE will listen to tribal college leaders in its decision-making. For example, its proposal to slash tribal college funding came shortly after a listening session with institutional leaders, he said.

    At the same time, he’s buoyed by the fact that bipartisan support not only saved colleges from proposed cuts, but it increased their funding; the Education Department funneled a historic one-time tranche of funds to tribal colleges, redirected from grants for other minority-serving institutions, earlier this year. Contributions from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, including a $10 million gift to the College of Menominee Nation, have also offered some extra stability.

    “I have been on roller coasters, but never a roller coaster like this,” Caldwell said. But “I think that strong bipartisan support bodes well for us, even in the midst of this restructuring.”

    Twyla Baker, president of Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College in North Dakota, said what’s most concerning to her is that the interagency agreement came as a “total surprise.”

    “Tribes, tribal nations, tribal educators should have known about this,” she said. They “should have had input on this well before any type of moves should have been made, before any type of interagency agreements should have been signed … Consultation should have happened and needs to happen quickly if we’re going to continue on this path.”

    She also has her doubts about ED shifting responsibilities over to the Department of the Interior. She said tribal college leaders have worked to develop expertise within the Education Department about their institutions and now it feels like that effort was for naught.

    “You’re kind of pulling the rug out from under us,” she said. “And that structure, the regularity of how business is done, is going to be dismantled. You can’t just shove it over to somebody else’s responsibility and expect it to work well.”

    She worries the transition could affect students if services and resource allocation are interrupted.

    “That type of interruption can be pretty untenable for small schools in rural areas, which is what a lot of us are.”

    Whatever happens, Baker said the transition is “a diversion of energy that didn’t necessarily have to happen where we could have been just focusing on our missions.”

    A Fraught Past

    The Bureau of Indian Education has come under fire in the past for its negligent oversight of K–12 schools and the two higher ed institutions in its care.

    Members of Congress held a heated hearing last year in which many accused the Bureau of Indian Education of responding slowly or inadequately to student and employee complaints at Haskell Indian Nations University, including reports of sexual assault. Some Kansas lawmakers even proposed removing Haskell from federal control.

    The BIE has also historically drawn criticism for poor academic outcomes, limited reporting, inadequate technology and deferred maintenance backlogs at its K–12 schools, ProPublica reported. A 2014 report by Sally Jewell, interior secretary under President Barack Obama, and former Education Secretary Arne Duncan called the BIE a “stain on our Nation’s history.” The report denounced the agency for producing “generations of American Indians who are poorly educated” and promised to undertake reforms.

    (Tony Dearman, director of the Bureau of Indian Education since 2016, told ProPublica that the BIE has undergone changes since then, including a more direct process to inspect school buildings, make major purchases and enter into contracts.)

    In a statement to Inside Higher Ed, the Department of the Interior described its new responsibilities toward tribal colleges as an “opportunity to better serve Native youth” and emphasized plans to solicit tribal college leaders’ input during the transition.

    “As we move forward with efforts to improve the coordination and delivery of Native American education programs, the Bureau of Indian Education will continue to engage closely with tribes and education partners to ensure their perspectives inform our work,” the statement read.

    “We value the input we receive from tribes and stakeholders, and we remain dedicated to building a future where Native students have the tools, support, and opportunities they need to thrive for generations to come.”

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  • Cost Is Graduate Enrollment “Gatekeeper”

    Cost Is Graduate Enrollment “Gatekeeper”

    Many graduate programs face funding cuts, enrollment declines and uncertain futures, but a new report describes cost of attendance as the “ultimate gatekeeper” to enrollment.

    Between Aug. 20 and Sept. 8, 2025, the enrollment management consulting firm EAB surveyed 8,106 current and prospective graduate and adult learners about their motivations, financial concerns, program search methods and program preferences.

    The findings, published Thursday in EAB’s 2025 Adult Learner Survey, show that cost ranked as the most important factor in enrollment decisions, surpassing program accreditation, which was last year’s top factor.

    The majority of prospective students (60 percent) said they would eliminate a program from consideration if they perceived it to be “too expensive.” Although data from the National Center for Education Statistics shows that the average annual cost of graduate school is more than $20,000, EAB’s survey found that 39 percent of learners believe anything more than $10,000 is too expensive; 62 percent said they wouldn’t be willing to pay more than $20,000 a year for graduate school.

    “The hopes and expectations of today’s adult learners are colliding with a financial aid system in a period of significant transition,” Val Fox, a senior director and principal in EAB’s adult learner recruitment division, said in a news release. “Federal aid sources are shrinking, and students with low credit scores may not qualify for private loans. This mismatch will make it even harder to sustain enrollment at a time when institutions need domestic adult learners more than ever.”

    Learners’ heightened concerns about cost come as graduate programs also grapple with new federal policies—including caps on graduate student loans, cuts to research funding and visa restrictions for international students—that are making it even harder for institutions to balance their budgets and attract new students.

    At the same time, however, graduate students and adult learners increasingly rely on outside funding. Scholarships were the most commonly cited funding source (52 percent), followed by financial aid, loans or grants, though both categories fell several percentage points compared to last year. Meanwhile, the report found that 25 percent of respondents cited personal or household income as one of their top five funding sources this year, compared to more than 40 percent last year.

    “Success for U.S. graduate schools in 2026 will depend heavily on their ability to adapt recruiting strategies to accommodate policy shifts and evolving student priorities,” Fox said. “Schools need to communicate costs clearly, especially on digital channels, and align their value propositions to individual student interests through hyperpersonalized marketing.”

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  • FTC Claims the ABA Is a Monopoly

    FTC Claims the ABA Is a Monopoly

    The Federal Trade Commission accused the American Bar Association of having a “monopoly on the accreditation of American law schools” in a letter to the Texas Supreme Court at a time when the state is considering minimizing the ABA’s oversight of legal education.

    In April, the Texas Supreme Court announced it was looking into eliminating ABA requirements for licensure. Justices wrote in a tentative opinion in the fall that the ABA “should no longer have the final say on whether a law school’s graduates are eligible to sit for the Texas bar exam and become licensed to practice law.” It also invited the public to comment on a proposal to potentially undercut the ABA as an accreditor for Texas law schools.

    FTC officials Clarke Edwards and Daniel Guarnera signaled support for potentially moving away from ABA accreditation in a nine-page letter submitted to the Texas Supreme Court on Monday. In addition to claiming the ABA was a monopoly, they argued it had “rigid and costly requirements” and that it mandates “every law school follow an expensive, elitist model of legal education.”

    The two FTC officials also accused the ABA of driving up the costs of law school.

    “The ABA’s standards for accreditation appear to go far beyond what is reasonably necessary to assure adequate preparation for the practice of law in Texas, increasing the cost of a legal education. The current rule therefore likely causes Texas to forgo admitting many potentially qualified lawyers who could provide needed legal services to the Texas public,” they wrote.

    Monday’s letter reflects rhetoric from President Donald Trump and his allies who have taken aim at accreditors in recent years. Trump blasted the ABA in an April executive order, accusing it of discrimination for its diversity, equity and inclusion standards. (The ABA suspended DEI standards for accreditation in February, before the executive order.)

    The ABA did not respond to a request for comment from Inside Higher Ed.

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  • House Republicans Accuse Truman Scholarship of Liberal Bias

    House Republicans Accuse Truman Scholarship of Liberal Bias

    House Republicans held a hearing Wednesday broadcasting long-standing conservative allegations of a left-wing bias in the small, prestigious Truman Scholarship program. Witnesses called by the GOP said the winners disproportionately espouse causes such as promoting racial justice and fighting climate change—and wind up working for Democrats and left-leaning organizations—while few recipients profess interest in conservative aims.

    But rather than counter the allegations, Democrats and their invited witness largely called the proceedings a distraction from the issue of college unaffordability, which they accused the GOP of exacerbating.

    The Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development hearing reflected a trend in conservative criticism of higher ed: allegations of favoritism toward liberals and left-leaning thought within very exclusive programs, including certain Ivy League institutions. The Trump administration’s sweeping research funding cuts for particular universities—and the congressional grillings of university presidents during antisemitism hearings before Trump retook the White House—have targeted institutions that only a fraction of Americans attend.

    “The Truman Scholarship represents an appropriation of $3 million a year, and directly impacts just 50 to 60 students annually,” said Democratic witness Ashley Harrington, senior policy counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. “The cuts to the higher education safety net made in the One Big Beautiful Bill are of far greater consequence to the millions of Americans who have never even heard of the Truman Scholarship.”

    “I hope today’s conversation can shift toward making our entire higher education system more affordable and accessible for all students,” Harrington said, “instead of having a narrow, partisan dialogue about the very few who receive this elite scholarship.”

    Republicans and their witnesses—one from a conservative-leaning media outlet and two from conservative-leaning think tanks—didn’t take her up on that invitation. Jennifer Kabbany, editor in chief of The College Fix, said her outlet has been researching liberal bias in the Truman Scholarship for 10 years and argued that its recipients hold a lot of sway.

    “They’re lobbying, they’re working for lawmakers, they’re consulting, they’re working for very influential, liberal-leaning law firms,” Kabbany said. “And so they’re having a big influence on our nation’s conversation and what legislation is brought forth. This isn’t just a $3 million scholarship—this is the direction of our country.”

    The scholarship, which provides junior undergraduates up to $30,000 for a “public service–related” graduate degree, was founded as a memorial to the namesake Democratic president. Congress passed legislation creating it in 1974, and Republican president Gerald Ford signed the bill into law the next year.

    Lawmakers didn’t invite anyone from the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation to testify. Rep. Burgess Owens, the Utah Republican who chairs the subcommittee, told Inside Higher Ed he didn’t know why no one from the foundation appeared. Audra McGeorge, communications director for the Education and Workforce Committee, said the full committee chooses witnesses.

    “We provided an opportunity for the Truman Scholarship program to respond to the Committee’s concerns” outlined in a letter last year citing a report on the program from the American Enterprise Institute, McGeorge said. “Since they chose not to engage with us on those issues, we did not see a productive path in repeating the outreach. So we sought out researchers who have examined this issue fairly.”

    The minority Democratic party gets to choose only one witness. Raiyana Malone, a spokesperson for the committee’s Democrats, said, “We really wanted to focus on the Big Ugly Bill cuts to higher education,” so they chose Harrington.

    The report from AEI, a conservative-leaning think tank, said that, of the 182 Truman winners between 2021 and 2023, just six espoused interest in a traditionally “conservative-leaning” cause. While numerous winners cited an interest in topics such as immigrants’ rights or racial justice, none professed interest in protecting the rights of the unborn or defending the Second Amendment, the report said.

    Frederick Hess, AEI’s director of education policy studies and co-author of the report, said the Truman Foundation began hiding past news releases and reduced the amount of biographical information on its website to prevent the replication of such studies. In an email, Tara Yglesias, the foundation’s deputy executive secretary, said its 2025 scholar listing had returned to a format used in the early 2000s partly because “scholars, particularly those working in national security and similar areas, had made requests that we not post their biographical information publicly. Additionally, significant staff time was required to keep the biographies current, even for the short time they were visible.”

    Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, an Oregon Democrat, criticized the fact that the report’s other author, Joe Pitts, didn’t disclose in the report that he was a failed applicant for the scholarship. Bonamici called Pitts “disgruntled,” which Pitts rebutted on X.

    The scholarship foundation didn’t provide Inside Higher Ed an interview Wednesday or answer some specific emailed questions. Terry Babcock-Lumish, its executive secretary, wrote in an email that while no one from the foundation was invited to testify, “We welcome Members of Congress’s assistance in raising awareness of our opportunity and hope they will encourage the colleges and universities in their districts to nominate qualified candidates.” She said it’s “a merit-based scholarship program committed to identifying aspiring leaders throughout the United States, regardless of ideology.”

    “Unless candidates apply, we cannot select them,” she wrote.

    While the Republican witnesses shared their specific issues with the program’s recruitment and selection process—including not seeking out candidates from traditionally conservative campuses—they and the Republican subcommittee members also traced the alleged liberal bias to the left-leaning nature of academe in general.

    “On the campus level, those that are deciding who gets put to the regional committees, I mean, they’re professors,” said Kabbany, of The College Fix. “And we all know, 30 to one, professors are liberals, so they’re obviously going to advance candidates who have beliefs and pet causes that they love … It’s really systemic.”

    A few Republicans, including Owens, said Congress should end the program.

    “The Truman committee and this entire process is anti-conservative,” Owens said in his closing remarks. He said, “This has been a pipeline for Democrats, no question about it … I don’t think it’s fixable.”

    Rep. Mark Harris, a North Carolina Republican, said, “It’s deeply ironic to me that taxpayers who also never attended college, just like [President] Truman himself, are now forced to fund elite postgraduate degrees for a handpicked few. In my opinion, the federal government has no business running a scholarship program at all.” (According to the Truman Library, Harry S. Truman attended a business college for one year before dropping out to help with his father’s business.)

    Two Republicans—current New York gubernatorial candidate Elise Stefanik and Rep. Randy Fine, a staunchly pro-Israel Florida Republican who has said, “We have a Muslim problem in America”—accused the program of fostering antisemitism. “This, to me, is beyond liberal bias,” Fine said. “This is a flat-out embrace of Muslim terror and [represents] the fact that U.S. taxpayer dollars are being used to fund terrorists.”

    Fine, who is Jewish, said, “I have zero desire to reform the Truman fellowship. I’m not interested in borrowing $3 million from my children and grandchildren to give it to people who would like to kill them, so I believe we should shut down the program.” (Fine also made a point to say he wasn’t asking questions of Adam Kissel, a Republican witness, because of Kissel’s connection to the Heritage Foundation, which many conservatives accuse of tolerating antisemitism.)

    Stefanik, who is on the scholarship foundation’s board, cited a 2025 Truman scholar who “publicly espoused support for Hamas,” adding, “We need to address this rise in antisemitism with some of the recipients.”

    Eva Frazier, the Truman recipient whom Stefanik has publicly named in the past, told Inside Higher Ed in an email, “Congresswoman Stefanik’s comments followed a long pattern of politicians attempting to scare students into silence for speaking out about the Palestinian cause, but we refuse to be intimidated by such attacks.”

    Rep. Tim Walberg, a Michigan Republican and chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, said the alleged Truman Scholarship issues are “illustrative of so much that goes on.”

    “We’re seeing a bias in opposition to the American idea,” he said. “That isn’t liberal or conservative—it’s American.”

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  • 6-Year Graduation Rate Holds Steady

    6-Year Graduation Rate Holds Steady

    Almost 44 percent of those who began community college in 2019 graduated within six years.

    Photo illustration by Inside Higher Ed | XiXinXing/iStock/Getty Images

    The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center’s latest report on persistence and retention shows that six-year completion rates held steady from the previous year; 61.1 percent of individuals who started college in 2019 graduated in six years—the same rate as those who began in 2018.

    Completion rates at community colleges have been trending upward for the past several years, rising from 41 percent among the cohort that began in 2014 to 43.9 percent in the 2019 group—although that share has remained stagnant over the past two cohorts. In contrast, completion rates at private four-year institutions have declined; though they still have the highest six-year completion rates over all, they’ve decreased almost three percentage points from their height six years ago.

    Across all institutions, 9 percent of the 2019 cohort—which saw the spring semester of their first year interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic—haven’t completed their degrees but are still enrolled in their studies, with 57.5 percent of that group now studying at a different institution than where they started. The remaining 29.8 percent have stopped out.

    “Students who started in fall 2019 faced the challenges of the pandemic beginning in their second semester, so the fact that their completion rates remain at recent highs underscores the remarkable strength of our higher education ecosystem,” said Doug Shapiro, NSCRC’s executive director, in a press release. “This stability is built on the day‑to‑day efforts of students and institutions to maintain progress toward credentials in a changing environment.”

    The overall six-year completion rate has remained essentially stagnant over the past several years, but it has improved by seven percentage points in the past decade; only 54.1 percent of the class that began in fall 2009 finished college within six years, the lowest rate of the cohorts tracked in the report.

    Retention has long been a key focus of higher education leaders, but with the so-called demographic cliff looming, some colleges are particularly focused on improving that metric as a means to keep up their enrollment numbers.

    While overall completion rates are high, some groups of students complete at significantly lower rates than others. Only about a third of part-time students from the 2019 cohort graduated in six years, and 30 percent stopped out within their first year in college. Black (44 percent), Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (44.5 percent) and Native American (45.2 percent) students had the lowest six-year completion rates, although for Black students the rate has increased significantly from 38.7 percent among the 2011 cohort. Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander and Native American students’ completion rates, on the other hand, have declined slightly in the same time frame.

    Completion rates increase with the income level of the student’s neighborhood. Though the lowest-income neighborhoods have the lowest six-year graduation rate, the 2019 lowest-income group was the first to exceed a 50 percent graduation rate, up significantly from 43.1 percent among the 2010 cohort.

    Women have a higher graduation rate than men by about six percentage points, a gap that has been relatively consistent over the cohorts included in the report.

    And students who came into college with dual-enrollment credits had a significantly higher six-year graduation rate than those without, at 71.1 percent.

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