Tag: News

  • Higher ed is not a public good—but it could be (opinion)

    Higher ed is not a public good—but it could be (opinion)

    ogichobanov/iStock/Getty Images Plus

    When 85,000 Cornhuskers all wear red on game day, it’s easy to think of college as something larger than students and professors, classes, research and extracurriculars. Berkeley, Penn State and Michigan each have hundreds of thousands of online followers. Tar Heel nation is, after all, a nation.

    But wearing “college” on our chests does not a polity make. Higher education is not a public good and Americans know it.

    In the plainest sense, public goods aren’t excludable. Think of the air we breathe, interstate freeways and national defense. Everyone is affected by carbon dioxide levels, can travel by open roads and is protected, equally, from foreign threats.

    But when it comes to higher ed, exclusion is the name of the game.

    Admissions offices reject most applicants from selective colleges and create barriers at others. Tuition, even when subsidized, deters those shocked by sticker prices or unable to pay. Courses are controlled by departments, yet some intellectual climates drive students away. Governance, when behind closed doors, excludes parents, students, employers and other stakeholders.

    All told, the labyrinth of exclusionary practices makes higher ed more of a private than public good. We can interpret low public confidence in higher education as reflecting a belief that college is for someone else. Of those who matriculate, two-thirds of new community college students form the same opinion and drop out or enter a broken transfer system. One-third of new B.A. students will drop out or take more than six years to graduate. Once they’re gone, it’s often for good: Only 2.6 percent of stop-outs re-enrolled in the 2022–23 academic year. All told, this has led to a societal “diploma divide”: More people without a college degree voted for Donald Trump’s re-election in 2024 than in 2020.

    Colleges and universities do need to reclaim a place of pride in American society. But instead of ambiguous calls “reaffirming higher education’s public purpose,” why not simply be more public? And deliver an education that is, well, more good?

    My new book, Publicization: How Public and Private Interests Can Reinvent Education for the Common Good (Teachers College Press), argues that educational institutions of any sort—private nonprofit, state-controlled or proprietary—can be more publicly purposed when they meet two criteria. First, they must prepare each generation to sustain the common goods on which American life rests: a vibrant democracy, a productive economy, a civil society and a healthy planet. These are three long-standing aims and one new existential goal, around which colleges and universities can better organize the student experience.

    Second, institutions must themselves operate in ways that are more public than private. To do so, Publicization offers an “Exclusion Test” applicable to six domains—funding, governance, goals, accountability, equity and an institution’s underlying educational philosophy. Colleges and universities can apply the test to these areas and identify where operations can be less exclusionary and therefore more public.

    For example, do policies assume that some students aren’t “college ready,” or do we meet everyone—particularly those impacted by COVID-19—where they are? To what extent do applications create formal and informal hurdles, or do we offer more streamlined direct admission? Are inequitable proxies like Advanced Placement Calculus blocking talented students from admission, or does coursework in more widely relevant areas like statistics matter equally? Are free college plans riddled with eligibility fine print or open to anyone?

    Are courses gated by size, section, time of day and instructor approval, or are they more accessible? Are we mostly catering to young adults or presenting real options for the almost 37 million Americans with some college but no degree? Is federal funding considered a necessary evil, or is Washington engaged as a key stakeholder? Do boards focus narrowly on institutional issues or see themselves as hinges between school and society, mediating higher ed’s role in a democracy? Do we tolerate every private belief or hold ourselves to an epistemology premised on shared evidence and public scrutiny, what Jonathan Rauch calls the “Constitution of Knowledge”?

    As for an experience that’s good, higher ed’s 15-year-old success agenda focuses on access, affordability and student support. These aren’t enough. Quality must join the list, with a particular focus on our technical core: teaching and learning.

    Ask any of the nation’s 1.5 million professors and most will tell you they were not taught how to teach. They are world-class scholars. They serve their institutions. They are committed to students. But hardly any received comprehensive training in effective instruction. This persists despite the fact that most Americans believe the best colleges have the best teaching and evidence that effective instruction leads to more positive mindsets about one’s academic abilities, deeper learning, stronger retention and life readiness.

    As such, it’s no surprise that Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa found, in Academically Adrift (University of Chicago Press), “limited learning on college campuses.” That was in 2010 and not enough has changed, as recent articles in USA Today, The Washington Post, Washington Monthly, Forbes, Deseret News and The Chronicle of Higher Education affirm.

    But change is afoot. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine soon plan to publish STEM teaching standards, a first. Groups like the Equity-Based Teaching Collective have identified policies and practices to promote effective teaching campuswide. Over the past 10 years, the Association of College and University Educators, which I co-founded, has credentialed 42,000 professors in effective teaching at 500 institutions nationwide with proof of positive student impact. Last June’s second National Higher Education Teaching Conference gathered hundreds of higher education leaders and professors to accelerate the teaching excellence movement.

    College as a “public good”? Let’s give the public what it wants and deserves: a good education. In which the “best” colleges aren’t, by definition, the most exclusive. So that at family gatherings, our students tell their voting, poll-taking relatives how much they are learning, how great their professors are and how college is for them.

    Jonathan Gyurko teaches politics and education at Teachers College, Columbia University. His new book, Publicization: How Public and Private Interests Can Reinvent Education for the Common Good, was published by Teachers College Press last March.

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  • Biden administration discharges $4.5B in loans for Ashford students

    Biden administration discharges $4.5B in loans for Ashford students

    The Education Department is discharging any remaining loans for more than 260,000 borrowers who attended Ashford University and will move to bar a key executive at Ashford’s former parent company from the federal financial aid system, the agency announced Wednesday.

    The agency’s action, totaling $4.5 billion, builds on an August 2023 decision to forgive $72 million in loans for 2,300 former Ashford students after finding that the college repeatedly lied to them about the cost, time requirement and value of its degree program. The discharges through the department’s borrower-defense program are among the largest in the program’s history. Wiping out the loans for Corinthian College students cost the department $5.8 billion, while the discharges for former ITT Technical Institute students totaled $3.9 billion.

    The University of Arizona acquired the predominantly online institution Ashford in 2020 and rebranded it as the University of Arizona Global Campus. At first, the university partnered with Zovio Inc., a publicly traded company that owned Ashford, to run the rebranded entity but decided in 2022 to buy Zovio’s assets. The University of Arizona has since moved to completely absorb the online campus.

    Borrowers who attended Ashford from March 1, 2009, through April 30, 2020, are eligible for relief.

    “Numerous federal and state investigations have documented the deceptive recruiting tactics frequently used by Ashford University,” said U.S. under secretary of education James Kvaal in a statement. “In reality, 90 percent of Ashford students never graduated, and the few who did were often left with large debts and low incomes. Today’s announcement will finally provide relief to many students who were harmed by Ashford’s illegal actions.”

    The Biden administration has forgiven $34 billion via borrower defense for 1.9 million borrowers, the department said.

    But forgiving loans for Ashford students isn’t enough for the department. Officials proposed a governmentwide debarment of Andrew Clark, who in 2004 founded Bridgepoint Education, which later became Zovio. He stepped down in March 2021.

    The debarment would mean Clark could no longer be employed in any role at any institution that receives funding from Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, which authorizes federal financial aid programs, for at least three years.

    “The conduct of Ashford can be imputed to Mr. Clark because he participated in, knew, or had reason to know of Ashford’s misrepresentations,” the department said in a news release. “Mr. Clark not only supervised the unlawful conduct, he personally participated in it, driving some of the worst aspects of the boiler-room-style recruiting culture.”

    The department’s Office of Hearings and Appeals has final say on whether to debar Clark, who can contest the decision.

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  • New York governor proposes free community college initiative

    New York governor proposes free community college initiative

    During her State of the State address on Tuesday, New York governor Kathy Hochul announced a plan to make community college tuition-free for residents pursuing associate degrees in certain high-demand fields. 

    The program would be open to adults aged 25 to 55 pursuing degrees in nursing, teaching, technology fields and engineering. If enacted, it could take effect as early as this fall and cover tuition, fees and textbook costs for students attending State University of New York and City University of New York community colleges. Hochul also proposed the creation of new apprenticeship programs for similar high-demand jobs. 

    Currently, New York students from families making under $125,000 can attend SUNY and CUNY schools tuition-free, regardless of their degree program. For most of its nearly 200-year existence, all CUNY schools were free for New York residents to attend. That policy was abandoned after the 1976 city financial crisis.

    In recent years, a number of states have enacted free tuition initiatives targeted to midcareer adults and aimed at boosting employment in specific high-demand jobs. Massachusetts’s new MassReconnect program led to a surge in community college enrollment last year, and Michigan enacted a similar plan last summer.

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  • Retention tied to timely completion for college students

    Retention tied to timely completion for college students

    Analysis of completion from the class entering in 2016 finds persistence is a significant factor in timely completion among associate and bachelor’s degree seekers.

    Phira Phonruewiangphing/iStock/Getty Images Plus

    Over 36 million Americans have earned some college credits but have yet to complete a credential, demonstrating gaps in higher education that leave students with only part of a degree and often student loan debt.

    Colleges and universities have invested in their retention strategies to improve students’ completion and the cost of education by helping them complete a degree in a timely manner.

    Recent data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center found that academic outcomes in the first year and first- to second-year persistence were significant indicators of a student’s likelihood of completing a degree and doing so expeditiously.

    Survey Says 

    A 2023 Student Voice survey from Inside Higher Ed and College Pulse found 69 percent of undergraduate survey respondents (n=3,004) expected to graduate in the standard two- or four-year time frame.

    Thirteen percent of respondents said they didn’t expect to graduate in a timely manner because they planned or expected to take longer, and 3 percent said it was due to factors that they believe to be the fault of the institution.

    The background: The federal government tracks first-time degree seekers’ graduation rates in terms of six- and eight-year completion, but a typical associate or bachelor’s degree program can be categorized as two-year or four-year, respectively.

    The six-year completion rate for all college students entering two-year and four-year institutions in 2017 was 62.2 percent, with a 34-percentage-point gap between private nonprofit four-year institutions (77.5 percent) and public two-year colleges (43.4 percent).

    Timely completion is associated with lower financial burdens, due to prolonged enrollment and improved socioeconomic mobility for students, as well as optimized institutional resources for the institution. Individual challenges and institutional policies can impact students’ timely progression, including academic challenges, personal struggles, basic needs insecurity, financial instability, transfer barriers, unclear degree requirements, developmental education, registration policies or insufficient advising.

    The study evaluates early success indicators, including first-year GPA, credit completion ratios, second-year enrollment and credits earned, and how these indicators predict completion across credential types and demographic profiles.

    Methodology

    Timely completion, as defined by the report authors, is “the student having earned the credential they initially sought, at any institution, within a specific time frame,” allowing for variance between associate, credential or bachelor’s programs.

    Researchers evaluated four factors: first-year credit completion ratio, first-year credits earned, first-year grade point average and second-year enrollment. Study participants (n=307,500) included first-time, full-time starters enrolled in fall 2016 in bachelor’s degree (63 percent) or associate programs (37 percent). Data was sourced from the Postsecondary Data Partnership by the National Student Clearinghouse and therefore is not representative of the national population.

    The findings: Researchers found a majority of timely completers demonstrated early success indicators, including having a significant number of credits earned, above a 3.3 GPA and re-enrollment for a second year. Further, “Students who completed in a timely manner had higher early indicators than non-completers, regardless of race, gender, age at entry, or major field of study,” according to the report.

    Even students who took 150 percent (three years for an associate degree, six years for a bachelor’s) or 200 percent (four and eight years, respectively) of the expected time to complete had higher success indicators than their noncompleting peers.

    In their first year, students who completed a credential had higher GPAs, earned more credits and completed on average 90 percent of the credits they attempted. They were also more often enrolled in their second year—even if at another institution—compared to their peers who did not finish in a timely manner.

    First- to second-year persistence was a distinct factor of timely completion for two-year or certificate students; students who did not complete enrolled in their second year at a rate 32 percentage points lower than those who did complete. This was the most important success indicator, followed by first-year credits earned.

    For bachelor’s degree seekers, a student’s first-year GPA was the most important early success indicator, followed by second-year retention.

    A student’s field of study can also relate to their timely completion, with bachelor’s degree seekers majoring in social sciences or business more likely to complete and associate degree seekers pursuing STEM or a social science degree more likely to complete. However, the researchers utilized program of study as a demographic category, and therefore analysis cannot be made of program requirements or courses that could help or hinder student completion.

    “These findings emphasize the need for targeted, evidence-based interventions that prioritize early academic achievement, support retention, and address program-specific challenges to improve completion outcomes,” according to the report.

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  • 22 ideas for department chair merit badges (opinion)

    22 ideas for department chair merit badges (opinion)

    A running joke with my department chairs, when I was a dean, involved the awarding of merit badges for the accomplishment of a particularly thorny task that the outside world (outside of academia, that is) would not otherwise have known about. Generals rising in the ranks of the military accumulate ribbons. Why shouldn’t there be a similar accumulation of ceremonial badges for accomplishments on the way up the academic leadership ladder?

    The granting of ribbons or merit badges will be ever more important in the AI era, in which leaders cannot simply speak about something but rather demonstrate and present the knowledge physically. As the Boy Scouts Merit Badge Hub states, “If it says ‘show or demonstrate,’ that is what you must do. Just telling about it isn’t enough. The same thing holds true for such words as ‘make,’ ‘list,’ ’in the field,’ and ‘collect,’ ‘identify,’ and ‘label.’”

    For example: Consider details of just two of the 12 areas Scouts must master to earn the Boy Scout Bird Study Merit Badge:

    Demonstrate that you know how to use a bird field guide. Show your counselor that you are able to understand a range map by locating in the book and pointing out the wintering range, the breeding range, and/or the year-round range of one species of each of the following types of birds:

    1. Seabird
    2. Plover
    3. Falcon or hawk
    4. Warbler or vireo
    5. Sparrow

    Observe and be able to identify at least 20 species of wild birds. Prepare a field notebook, making a separate entry for each species, and record the following information from your field observations and other references.

    1. Note the date and time.
    2. Note the location and habitat.
    3. Describe the bird’s main feeding habitat and list two types of food that the bird is likely to eat.
    4. Note whether the bird is a migrant or a summer, winter, or year-round resident of your area.

    When scouts earn a Bird Study merit badge, you will know they know what they’re talking about and feel comfortable with those scouts running a birding outing. You will feel confident putting matters in their hands.

    Wouldn’t this approach be helpful for showing department chair expertise as well?

    The Basic Badges: Survival Skills for New Chairs

    I propose the list below as standard merit badges any department chair should be working toward. Following the Bird Study merit badge model, the specific tasks involved in earning the first badge are listed in detail. Follow this model and logic if you decide to document and award any or all of these badges at your institution.

    Meeting Management Merit Badge (for mastering the art of running efficient faculty meetings while maintaining collegiality and reaching actual decisions)

    1. Show that you are familiar with the terms used to describe meetings by doing the following:
      1. Sketch or trace a meeting room and then label 15 different aspects of a meeting.
      2. Draw up a meeting agenda and label six types of agenda items.
    2. Demonstrate that you know how to properly follow an agenda, use the AV equipment in the room and use the hybrid camera, plus monitor for virtual attendees:
      1. Explain what the Roman numerals mean on an agenda.
      2. Show how to present a PowerPoint to both present and virtual members.
      3. Show how to see, in a timely manner, when a virtual hand is up.
      4. Describe how to bring a latecomer up to speed on an agenda item already discussed.
    3. Demonstrate that you know how to use Robert’s Rules of Order. Show your dean that you are able to understand each chapter in the book, pointing out the debate rules, the tabling-a-motion rules and the majority requirements for each of the following types of votes:
      1. Motion to accept minutes.
      2. Motion to object.
      3. Motion to suspend consideration of an item.
      4. Motion to call the question.
      5. Motion to take up matter previously tabled.
      6. Procedure to select a second when everyone’s hand is up.
    4. Observe and be able to identify at least 20 types of meetings. Prepare a field notebook, making a separate entry for each species of meeting, and record the following information from your field observations and other references:
      1. Note the date and time.
      2. Note the location and room capacity.
      3. Describe each attendee’s main feeding habitat and list two types of food that the attendees are likely to eat.
      4. Note whether the attendee is a tenure-line professor, career-line or part-time/adjunct resident of your department.
    5. Successfully defuse at least three of these common meeting scenarios:
      1. The Filibuster Professor who “just has a quick comment” that turns into a 20-minute monologue.
      2. The Side Conversation Insurgents who start their own parallel meeting.
      3. The “Actually …” Interrupter who must correct every minor detail.
      4. The Passive-Aggressive Email Sender who “just wants to follow up on some concerns.”

    Do you not feel comfortable with any department chair who has earned a Meeting Management merit badge running a meeting? Following are some additional basic badges that one can earn for adept engagement in the everyday and more occasional department chair work.

    Budget Detective Merit Badge (for successfully tracking down and reallocating mysterious fund transfers and finding hidden resources)

    Schedule Tetris Merit Badge (for fitting 47 course sections into 32 available time slots while satisfying everyone’s preferences)

    Diplomatic Relations Merit Badge (for mediating between feuding faculty members without taking sides or losing sanity)

    Paperwork Expedition Merit Badge (for successfully navigating a minor curriculum change through six committees and three levels of administration)

    Assessment Survival Merit Badge (for completing a program review cycle without uttering the phrase “this is meaningless”)

    Email Endurance Merit Badge (for maintaining inbox zero while receiving 200-plus daily messages during registration week)

    Faculty Development Sherpa Merit Badge (for successfully guiding junior faculty through the tenure process wilderness)

    Student Crisis Navigation Merit Badge (for handling everything from grade appeals to mental health emergencies with grace—and documentation)

    Accreditation Archive Merit Badge (for creating and maintaining the sacred assessment documents for the next site visit)

    Interdepartmental Peace Treaty Merit Badge (for negotiating shared resources and cross-listed courses without starting a turf war)

    Conference Room Warrior Merit Badge (for surviving 50 consecutive hours of committee meetings in a single semester while maintaining consciousness)

    The Advanced Badges

    As department chairs move toward the “seasoned category,” akin to Eagle Scouts’ level of capability, these are the advanced merit badges department chairs should be moving toward:

    Everyone Remained Seated Merit Badge (for successfully hosting a controversial speaker event where the Q&A didn’t require campus police, no one stormed out, everyone actually asked questions instead of making speeches, and the dean didn’t have to issue a statement the next day)

    Viewpoint Diversity Navigator Merit Badge (for successfully resolving ideological tensions between the “universities are too woke” faculty member and the “universities aren’t woke enough” faculty member, while keeping both the university counsel office and the campus newspaper uninterested in your department)

    Social Media Firefighter Merit Badge (for managing department communications after a faculty member’s tweet goes viral, while upholding both academic freedom and institutional reputation)

    Soft Landing Merit Badge (for compassionately guiding a struggling graduate student toward alternative career paths while avoiding lawsuits, maintaining departmental reputation for mentoring, preventing faculty infighting about “standards” and ensuring the student leaves with dignity and future options intact)

    Side Hustle Tackler Merit Badge (for successfully filling out outside employment forms for a professor simultaneously consulting for Google, running a resale textbook start-up and offering expert testimony, while ensuring university compliance, managing jealous colleagues and preventing the local newspaper from running a “professors don’t work” exposé)

    Advanced Curriculum Shepherding Merit Badge (for successfully shepherding an interdisciplinary, multimodal, study abroad–required curriculum through 17 different committees without having it transformed into “just add one elective to the existing major”)

    Bonus points for maintaining revolutionary elements like “required internships,” “community-engaged capstone” and “two semesters abroad” through final approval, while fielding questions like “but how will student athletes do this?” and “what exactly do you mean by ‘transdisciplinary’?” and “have you checked with Risk Management?” and “will this impact our parking situation?”

    Fresh Blood Without Bloodshed Merit Badge (for successfully integrating an outside chair into a department that has been “led” by the same three faculty trading the position since 1987; includes surviving the “but that’s not how we do it” phase, the “well, in my day as chair” phase and the “I’ll just CC the dean on this email to help you understand our culture better” phase)

    Special recognition for preventing the emeritus faculty from creating a shadow government in the department’s second-floor conference room.

    The King Has Voluntarily Left the Building Merit Badge (For masterfully orchestrating the graceful exit of a chair who has held the position since before email existed, memorized every bylaw and has an office containing 27 years of irreplaceable paper files organized in a system only they understand; successfully convince them that spending more time on research is a promotion, not a demotion, while ensuring they actually hand over the department credit card and graduate student admissions spreadsheet before leaving)

    Bonus points if the outgoing chair willingly shares the password to the department’s social media accounts and reveals where they’ve been hiding the good coffee maker.

    The “Reply All” Survivor Merit Badge (for maintaining composure during the dreaded accidental reply-all chain that encompasses the entire college)

    And, finally (drum roll) the Ultimate Achievement: The Phoenix Chair Merit Badge (for successfully completing a term as chair and willingly agreeing to serve again)

    This highest honor requires:

    1. Completing all previous merit badges
    2. Still believing in the mission of higher education
    3. Retaining enough optimism to sign up for another term

    Note: This badge has only been awarded twice in recorded higher education history.

    Hollis Robbins is professor of English and former dean of humanities at the University of Utah.


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  • Students on media literacy and how colleges can help

    Students on media literacy and how colleges can help

    Social media is a top source of news for nearly three in four students, and half at least somewhat trust platforms such as Instagram and TikTok to deliver that news and other critical information accurately. As for legacy media sources, namely newspapers, just two in 10 students indicate they regularly rely on them for news. That’s even as most students indicate they trust newspapers to convey accurate information.

    These are some of the findings from Inside Higher Ed’s new Student Voice flash survey with Generation Lab on media literacy, conducted last month. Some of the data seems grim in light of declining public trust in institutions and expertise, and the spread of misinformation—concerns that many of the survey’s 1,026 two-year and four-year respondents share: Some 62 percent express some or a lot of concern about the spread of misinformation among their college peers. (See also this month’s news that Meta is eliminating third-party fact-checkers.) And not quite half of respondents (46 percent) approve of the job colleges and universities as a whole are doing to promote students’ media literacy.

    At the same time, the data suggests that colleges and universities are at least somewhat effective in this area. One example: Just one in 10 students rates their level of media literacy prior to attending college as very high, compared to the quarter of students who rate their current level of media literacy as very high. Nearly all respondents, 98 percent, also indicate they regularly practice at least some basic media literacy skills to check the accuracy of the information they’re consuming. To some degree, this challenges ongoing skepticism about students’ critical thinking abilities and how helpful colleges are in developing them.

    When asked to highlight ways colleges and universities can help them build their awareness and skills, students ranked creating digital resources to learn about media literacy highest on a list of possible actions.

    Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab defined media literacy in the survey as the ability or skills to critically analyze for accuracy, credibility or evidence of bias in the content created and consumed in sources including radio, television, the internet and social media. Read on for an overview of the findings in six charts, plus some additional analysis—and how colleges can help close some of these gaps.

    Students’ top sources for news are social media and friends and family/word of mouth. Relatively few students indicate they regularly get their news from sources such as newspapers, broadcast/network TV news, radio or magazines. This is relatively consistent across institution type (two-year/four-year and public/private nonprofit), though students at private nonprofits (n=259) are much more likely than their public counterparts (n=767) to indicate they read newspapers, at 38 percent versus 15 percent, respectively. By student type, those 25 and older (n=167) are much less likely than their peers 18 to 24 (n=842) to say they rely on friends and family/word of mouth for news, at 33 percent versus 52 percent, respectively.

    Most students aren’t turning to legacy media as a top source of news, though they generally express trust in sources such as newspapers and broadcast network/TV news to deliver news and other critical information accurately. But more than half also express some or a great deal of trust in social media to deliver accurate information. Same for friends and family/word of mouth.

    When engaging with media of different kinds, about two in three students say they regularly check the accuracy of the information by analyzing the source’s perspective and/or possible biases, thinking critically about the message delivered (such as distinguishing fact from opinion), and verifying the information using other sources.

    Approximately half of students also say they consider the algorithm that is pushing them certain content on websites and/or social media, pause to check the information before sharing with others or on social media, and identify who or what additional sources are being included in the content. While nearly all students indicate they practice some of these skills, some differences emerge by political affiliation, with self-identified Democrats more likely than self-identified Republicans to report analyzing the source’s perspective and/or possible biases, for example, at 68 percent versus 53 percent.

    Many students indicate that their level of media literacy has increased in college. Students also express more confidence in their own level of media literacy than that of their peers, on average: While 72 percent of students rate their own level of media literacy as somewhat or very high, just 32 percent rate their peers’ level of media literacy this way, on average. And students across a range of demographics express at least some concern about the spread of misinformation among their college peers. This includes 63 percent of both Democrats and Republicans. By age, respondents 25 and older are likelier to express a very high level of concern (37 percent of this group versus 24 percent of the 18-to-24 set).

    How are institutions doing when it comes to helping students build their media literacy? As with their own level of media literacy relative to their peers’, respondents have a rosier view of their own institution than they do of higher education as a whole. This is relatively consistent across institution types, though students at private nonprofits are less likely than their public counterparts to approve of the job colleges and universities in general are doing.

    As for how institutions can best help students improve their media literacy, the top pick from a list of options (up to two choices) is creating digital resources for students to learn about media literacy (35 percent). Another relatively popular option is embedding training on media literacy in a first-year seminar or program (31 percent). This option is more popular among four-year college students than it is among two-year students. But creating peer-to-peer education programs on media literacy is more popular among two-year students than it is among four-year students.

    Building Habits and Competencies

    Renee Hobbs, professor of communication studies and director of the Media Education Lab at the University of Rhode Island, says it’s “no surprise that college students rely on their family and friends and social networks for news, as do most Americans.” In one comparison, an Intelligent survey of four-year college students following the 2024 election, respondents cited TikTok and Instagram as their top two news sources. The same survey found that students for voted for President-elect Donald Trump were twice as likely to get their news from podcasts as those who voted for Vice President Kamala Harris. In Inside Higher Ed’s survey, Democrats are somewhat more likely than Republicans to cite news podcasts as a top news source (12 percent versus 4 percent, respectively), but Republicans are somewhat more likely than Democrats to rely on opinion podcasts (12 percent versus 5 percent).

    Hobbs says it’s a “comfort” that even one in five Student Voice respondents relies heavily on newspapers. That the same, relatively small share expresses a very high level of trust in newspapers and broadcast news confirms national trends, she adds; a fall poll from Gallup, for example, found that confidence in mass media remained at a low. Noting the existence of active “news avoiders,” whose ranks are growing, according to data from the Reuters Institute, Hobbs says that her own media literacy students are required to read the newspaper. Turns out, many “appreciate the opportunity to take up the habit.”

    Regarding the ever-expanding space where media literacy overlaps with digital literacy, Hobbs’s own ongoing research suggests that teaching about algorithmic personalization is very low, at least in K-12 education. At the same time, many college students are digitally savvy, and Hobbs says some of her own students have significant followings on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and Twitch.

    As for how colleges and universities can help, Hobbs says general education requirements—such as those suggested in the survey—“might be the best place for media literacy to thrive in a higher education context.” Learning outcomes from Hobbs’s own digital media literacy course satisfy gen ed requirements regarding effective communication and developing and engaging in civic knowledge and responsibilities.

    Hobbs adds that academic librarians are leaders in media and digital literacy initiatives on many campuses, and that “one of the best ways for college and university students to develop media literacy competencies” is by creating media themselves. Possibilities include creating websites, podcasts, videos for YouTube or other social media, or developing a community public service media campaign or outreach program. Other opportunities? Working at the college newspaper or radio station or managing social media for a college unit or organization.

    “Creating media is a great way to develop media literacy skills, and college faculty may be pleasantly surprised to see what their students can create without any special prompting.”

    What are you and/or your institution doing to promote students’ media literacy? Let us know by submitting one of the forms found here.

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  • Ban on trans women in women’s sports passes the House

    Ban on trans women in women’s sports passes the House

    Representative Greg Steube, a Florida Republican, speaks at a press conference following the passage of his Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act in the House of Representatives.

    Allison Robbert/AFP via Getty Images

    The House of Representatives voted 218 to 206 to pass a bill that would unilaterally ban trans women from competing in women’s sports Tuesday. The votes were nearly split along party lines, but two Democrats, Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, both from Texas, voted for the bill.

    Sponsored by Representative Greg Steube, a Florida Republican, the legislation dubbed the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, is the latest attempt in Congress to keep trans women off women’s sports teams and builds on efforts in the states to restrict the participation of transgender students in sports that align with their gender identity. Last Congress, identical legislation from Steube passed the House but didn’t move forward in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

    Now, Republicans hold the majority in both the House and the Senate, making it far more likely that this iteration will be more successful. In nearly half of the country, trans women are banned from playing women’s sports at the K-12 or higher education level, but the legislation would take those bans nationwide.

    Passing the bill was a top priority for House Republican leadership, who included it on a list of 12 pieces of legislation to be considered first when the new session of Congress kicked off earlier this month. Its place of prominence seems to indicate that Republican leadership will prioritize rolling back or restricting the rights of transgender people, whom Republicans have often put at the center of a culture war.

    Republicans and President-elect Donald Trump have criticized the Biden administration’s effort to amend Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 to prevent blanket bans that prohibit transgender students from participating in sports consistent with their gender identity. Last month, the Biden administration scrapped that proposal.

    Under the bill, institutions that receive federal funding would be prohibited from allowing “a person whose sex is male to participate in an athletic program or activity that is designated for women or girls.” It defines sex as being based on “a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth,” though it doesn’t expound upon how an institution would tell. The bill does not prevent trans men from playing on men’s teams.

    Anti-trans activists argue that allowing individuals assigned male at birth to play on women’s sports teams opens cis women athletes up to being injured by athletes who are more naturally powerful due to their physiques. There is sparse research on if this is true; however, the few studies that do exist haven’t backed up the idea that trans women retain significant advantage over athletes assigned female at birth.

    Supporters of the legislation—including some cis female athletes, like Riley Gaines, who have competed alongside and against trans athletes at the collegiate level—also argue that trans women take spots on women’s teams, going against Title IX’s promise of equal opportunity, and that it is uncomfortable for cisgender female athletes to share close quarters, like locker rooms, with individuals assigned male at birth.

    Representative Tim Walberg, the Michigan Republican who chairs the House Education and the Workforce Committee, echoed these sentiments in his argument on the House floor Tuesday.

    “Mr. Speaker, kicking girls off sports teams to make way for a biological male takes opportunities away from these girls,” he said. “This means fewer college scholarships and fewer opportunities for girls. It also makes them second-class citizens in their own sports and puts their safety at risk.”

    Some people who agree that trans women should not play on women’s teams say they broadly support transgender individuals but see it as unfair for them to take spots on women’s teams. But Steube took a different approach. When he announced the bill earlier this month, he quoted President-elect Donald Trump’s promise that “under the Trump administration, it will be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders—male and female.”

    Meanwhile, Democrats and LGBTQ+ advocates argue that trans women should have the opportunity to play sports—which have been shown to improve outcomes and mental health for youths across the board—on the team that matches their gender.

    “Transgender students—like all students—they deserve the same opportunity as their peers to learn teamwork, to find belonging and to grow into well-rounded adults through sports,” said Representative Suzanne Bonamici, an Oregon Democrat, on the House floor. “Childhood and adolescence are important times for growth and development, and sports help students form healthy habits and develop strong social and emotional skills. Sports provide meaningful opportunities for kids to feel confident in themselves and learn valuable life lessons about teamwork, leadership and communication. Teams provide a place for kids to make friends and build relationships.”

    Bonamici and other democrats dubbed the bill the “Child Predator Empowerment Act” and argued it wouldn’t make schools safer for students. In fact, she said that the vague language in the bill about what defines the male sex could lead to invasive examinations.

    “There is no way this so-called protection bill could be enforced without opening the door to harassment and privacy violations. It opens the door to inspection, not protection, of women and girls in sports,” she said. “Will students have to undergo exams to prove they’re a girl? We are already seeing examples of harassment and questioning of girls who may not conform to stereotypical feminine roles; will they be subject to demands for medical tests and private information? That’s intrusive, offensive and unacceptable, especially from a party of limited government.”

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  • Yeshiva U president to participate in Trump’s inauguration

    Yeshiva U president to participate in Trump’s inauguration

    Rabbi Ari Berman, president of Yeshiva University in New York, will deliver the benediction at the inauguration of Donald Trump next week, officials announced Tuesday.

    Berman “will call for the nation to rise to this historic moment and unite around America’s foundational values as a source for realizing our shared dreams of a prosperous, compassionate country led by faith and trust in God,” according to a university news release.

    Berman has led Yeshiva University, a modern Orthodox Jewish institution, since 2017. As president, he has overseen both successes and controversies. The institution recently reported its highest number of undergraduate applications in its history and has increased the number of transfer students, which it attributed in part to contentious pro-Palestinian protests elsewhere.

    But Yeshiva administrators also clashed with an LGBTQ student group, which it refused to recognize, prompting a lawsuit. In fall 2022, the university suspended all student groups in an effort to avoid recognizing the LGBTQ club after Yeshiva was dealt a legal setback.

    In the university news release, Berman said he was deeply honored to deliver the benediction.

    “As I prepare my remarks, I am inspired by the words of the prophet Jeremiah, who thousands of years ago walked through the roads of Jerusalem, the eternal capital of Israel, and proclaimed ‘Blessed is the one who trusts in God.’ I pray that we are all united around the core values of life and liberty, of service and sacrifice, and especially of faith and morality, which George Washington called the ‘indispensable supports’ of American prosperity,” Berman said.

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  • A crisis of trust in the classroom (opinion)

    A crisis of trust in the classroom (opinion)

    It was the day after returning from Thanksgiving break. I’d been stewing that whole time over yet another case of cheating, and I resolved to do something about it. “Folks,” I said, “I just can’t trust you anymore.”

    After a strong start, many of the 160 mostly first-year students in my general education course had become, well, challenging. They’d drift in and out of the classroom. Many just stopped showing up. Those who did were often distracted and unfocused. I had to ask students to stop watching movies and to not play video games. Students demanded time to talk about how they were graded unfairly on one assignment or another but then would not show up for meetings. My beleaguered TAs sifted through endless AI-generated nonsense submitted for assignments that, in some cases, asked only for a sentence or two of wholly unsubstantiated opinion. One student photoshopped himself into a picture of a local museum rather than visiting it, as required by an assignment. I couldn’t even administer a simple low-stakes, in-class pen-and-paper quiz without a third of the students miraculously coming up with the same verbatim answers. Were they cheating? Somehow using AI? Had I simplified the quiz so much that these were the only possible answers? Had I simply become a victim of my own misplaced trust?

    I meant that word, “trust,” to land just so. For several weeks we had been surveying the history of arts and culture in Philadelphia. A key theme emerged concerning whether or not Philadelphians could trust culture leaders to put people before profit. We talked about the postwar expansion of local universities (including our own), the deployment of murals during the 1980s as an antigraffiti strategy and, most recently, the debate over whether or not the Philadelphia 76ers should be allowed to build an arena adjacent to the city’s historic Chinatown. In each case we bumped into hard questions about who really benefits from civic projects that supposedly benefit everyone.

    So, when I told my students that I couldn’t trust them anymore, I wanted them to know that I wasn’t just upset about cheating. What really worried me was the possibility that our ability to trust one another in the classroom had been derailed by the same sort of crass profiteering that explains why, for instance, so many of our neighbors’ homes get bulldozed and replaced with cheap student apartments. That in a class where I’d tried to teach them to be better citizens of our democracy, to discern public good from private profit, to see value in the arts and culture beyond their capacity to generate revenue, so many students kept trying to succeed by deploying the usual strategies of the profiteer—namely cheating and obfuscation.

    But could any of them hear this? Did it even matter? How many of my students, I wondered, would even show up if not for a chance to earn points? Maybe to them class is just another transaction. Like buying fries at the food truck and hoping to get a few extra just for waiting patiently?

    I decided to find out.

    With just a few sessions remaining, I offered everyone a choice: Pick Path A and I’d instantly give you full credit for all of the remaining assignments. All you had to do was join me for a class session’s worth of honest conversation about how to build a better college course. Pick Path B and I’d give you the same points, but you wouldn’t even have to show up! You could just give up, no questions asked, and not even have to come back to class. Just take the fries—er, the points—and go.

    The nervous chatter that followed showed me that, if nothing else, my offer got their attention. Some folks left immediately. Others gathered to ask if I was serious: “I really don’t have to come back, and I’ll still get the points?!” I assured them that there was no catch. When I left the room, I wondered if anyone would choose Path A. Later that day, I checked the results: Nearly 50 students had chosen to return. I was delighted!

    But how to proceed? For this to work I needed them to tell me what they really thought, rather than what they supposed I wanted to hear. My solution was an unconference. When the students returned, I’d ask each of them to take two sticky notes. On one they’d write something they loved about their college courses. On the other, they’d jot down something that frustrated them. The TAs and I would then stand at the whiteboard and arrange the notes into a handful of common themes. We’d ask everyone to gravitate toward whatever theme interested them most, gather with whomever they met there and then chat for a while about ways to augment the good and eliminate the bad. I’d sweep in toward the end to find out what everyone had come up with.

    So, what did I learn? Well, first off, I learned to temper my optimism. Although 50 students selected Path A, only 40 showed up for the discussion. And then about half of those folks opted to leave once they were entirely convinced that they could not earn additional points by remaining. To put it in starker terms, I learned that—in this instance—only about 15 percent of my students were willing to attend a regularly scheduled class if doing so didn’t present some specific opportunity for earning points toward their grades. Which is also to say that more than 85 percent of my students were content to receive points for doing absolutely nothing.

    There are many reasons why students may or may not have chosen to come back. The size of this sample though convinces me that college instructors are contending with dire problems related to how a rising generation of students understands learning. These are not problems that can be beaten back with new educational apps or by bemoaning AI. They are rather problems concerning citizenship, identity and the commodification of everything. They reflect a collapse of trust in institutions, knowledge and the self.

    I don’t fault my students for mistrusting me or the systems that we’ve come to rely on in the university. I too am skeptical about the integrity of our nation’s educational landscape. The real problem, however, is that the impossibility of trusting one another means that I cannot learn in any reliable way what the Path B students need for this situation to change.

    I can, however, learn from the Path A students, and one crucial lesson is that they exist. That is very good news! I learned, too, that the “good” students are not always the good students. The two dozen students who stuck it out were not, by and large, the students I expected to remain. I’d say that just about a third of the traditionally high-performing students came back without incentive. It’s an important reminder to all of us that surviving the classroom by teaching to only those students who appear to care is a surefire way to alienate others who really do.

    Some of what the Path A students taught me I’ve known for a long time. They react very favorably, for instance, to professors who make content immediate, interesting and personal. They feel betrayed by professors who read from years-old PowerPoints and will sit through those courses in silent resentment. Silence, in fact, appeared as a theme throughout our conversation. Many students are terrified to speak aloud in front of people they do not know or trust. They are also unsure about how to meet people or how to know if the people they meet can be trusted. None of us should be surprised that trust and communication are entwined. Thinking more fully about how they get bound up with the classroom will, for me, be a critical task going forward.

    I learned also that students appreciate an aspect of my teaching that I absolutely detest: They love when I publicly call out the disrupters and the rule breakers. They like it, that is, when I police the classroom. From my standpoint, having to be the heavy feels like a pedagogical failure. My sense is that a well-run classroom should prevent most behavior problems from occurring in the first place. Understandably, committed students appreciate when I ensure a fair and safe learning environment. But I have to wonder whether the Path A students’ appetite for schadenfreude reflects deeper problems: an unwillingness to confront difficulty, a disregard for the commonwealth, an immoderate desire for spectacle. Teaching is always a performance. But maybe what meanings our performances convey aren’t always what we think.

    By far, though, the most striking and maybe most troubling lesson I gathered during our unconference was this: Students do not know how to read. Technically they can understand printed text, and surely more than a few can do better than that. But the Path A students confirmed my sense that most if not a majority of my students were unable to reliably discern key concepts and big-picture meaning from, say, a 20-page essay written for an educated though nonspecialist audience. I’ve experienced this problem elsewhere in my teaching, and so I planned for it this time around by starting very slow. Our first reading was a short bit of journalism; the second was an encyclopedia entry. We talked about reading strategy and discussed methods for wrangling with difficult texts. But even so, I pretty quickly hit their limit. Weekly reading quizzes and end-of-week writing assignments called “connect the dots” showed me that most students simply could not.

    Concerns about declining literacy in the classroom are certainly not new. But what struck me in this moment was the extent to which the Path A students were fully aware of their own illiteracy, how troubled they were by it and how betrayed they feel by former teachers who assured them they were ready for college. During our discussion, students expressed how relieved they were when, late in the semester, I relented and substituted audio and video texts for planned readings. They want help learning how to read but are unsure of where or how to get it. There is a lot of embarrassment, shame and fear associated with this issue. Contending with it now must be a top priority for all of us.

    I learned so much more from our Path A unconference. In one of many lighthearted moments, for instance, we all heard from some international students about how “bonkers” they think the American students are. We’ve had a lot of laughs this semester, in fact, and despite the challenges, I’ve really enjoyed the work. But knowing what the work is, or needs to be, has never been harder. I want my students to see their world in new ways. They want highly individualized learning experiences free of confrontation and anxiety. I offer questions; they want answers. I beg for honesty; they demand points.

    Like it or not, cutting deals for points means that I’m stuck in the same structures of profit that they are. But maybe that’s the real lesson. Sharing something in common, after all, is an excellent first step toward building trust. Maybe even the first step down a new path.

    Seth C. Bruggeman is a professor of history and director of the Center for Public History at Temple University.

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  • What is scholasticide?

    What is scholasticide?

    Faculty at the University of Texas at Austin protested scholasticide last May.

    Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP via Getty Images

    Last week members of the American Historical Association voted overwhelmingly in favor of a resolution condemning scholasticide in Gaza amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.

    The resolution noted that attacks by the Israel Defense Forces have “effectively obliterated Gaza’s education system,” destroying the majority of schools and all 12 university campuses in the territory.

    Now the AHA’s elected council will consider whether or not to accept the resolution.

    The resolution—which passed on a 428-to-88 vote—follows a wave of protests on U.S. college campuses last spring, during which pro-Palestinian demonstrators leveled charges of scholasticide, among other things, at Israel. A group of 1,600 academics also signed on to an open letter in April that accused Israel of scholasticide and “indiscriminate killing of educators and students.” The Israeli government denies the charge, arguing that Gaza’s educational institutions have been taken over by Hamas.

    But what is scholasticide? Here’s a look at the origin of the term and why Israel stands accused of it.

    Scholasticide Defined

    Karma Nabulsi, a Palestinian scholar and an emeritus fellow in politics and international relations at the University of Oxford, is credited with coining the term in 2009. Nabulsi has described scholasticide as the systematic destruction of educational institutions.

    “We knew before, and see more clearly now than ever, that Israel is seeking to annihilate an educated Palestine,” Nabulsi told The Guardian during the 2009 war between Israel and Hamas.

    (Nabulsi did not respond to a request for comment from Inside Higher Ed.)

    While her immediate remarks at the time were in reference to that particular conflict, she argued that Israel had a long pattern of attacking educational institutions dating back to 1948.

    The transnational organization Scholars Against War has since built on Nabulsi’s definition, listing 18 acts as scholasticide. Those actions include killing students, teachers and other school-related personnel; destroying educational institutions; blocking the construction of new schools; and broadly “preventing scholarly exchange in all of its forms.”

    A Revival of the Phrase

    The term “scholasticide” first appeared in Inside Higher Ed in 2009, shortly after Nabulsi coined it, connected to debates over boycotting Israeli institutions during its conflict with Hamas at that time. That boycott effort largely failed and the term “scholasticide” shrank from the academic lexicon before re-emerging in 2024 amid the current war between Israel and Hamas, which is now in its 16th month and has led to the deaths of tens of thousands Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip. More than 1,200 civilians, both Israelis and foreign nationals, were killed by Hamas in the October 2023 terror attack that prompted the war; another 254 were taken hostage, many of whom were later killed or still have not returned home.

    Google Scholar indicates the word “scholasticide” appeared in only a few articles before 2024. Now the search engine fetches more than 150 results for the term, many originating last year.

    According to Google Trends, searches for the term “scholasticide” jumped last spring, coinciding with pro-Palestinian student protests that popped up on campuses across the U.S. Protesters at some institutions, including the University of Oregon and the University of Texas, also held scholasticide vigils to remember and mourn the lives of scholars lost in war.

    Some scholars have also used the term “educide” to describe what is happening in Gaza. That phrase emerged from the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which heavily damaged educational infrastructure in the country. However, according to Google Scholar and Google Trends, the term “scholasticide” appears to be used more broadly than “educide” since last year.

    Accusations of Scholasticide

    Beyond the attacks on students and faculty, United Nations experts have also expressed concern about the destruction of educational institutions in Gaza and raised the question of scholasticide last year.

    “With more than 80% of schools in Gaza damaged or destroyed, it may be reasonable to ask if there is an intentional effort to comprehensively destroy the Palestinian education system, an action known as ‘scholasticide,’” a group of more than 20 U.N. experts said in an April news release from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The group alleged “a systematic pattern of violence aimed at dismantling the very foundation of Palestinian society.”

    The Israeli military subsequently issued a statement in May emphasizing that the IDF has no “doctrine that aims at causing maximal damage to civilian infrastructure.” Officials accused Hamas of exploiting “civilian structures for terror purposes” by using such spaces to launch rocket attacks, store weapons and carry out various other purposes, according to The New York Times.

    A Failed Resolution

    In addition to the AHA resolution condemning scholasticide, the term also appeared in a proposed Modern Language Association resolution to endorse the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. The resolution cited the April statement from the U.N. and alleged that “Israel’s campaign of scholasticide has destroyed every university in Gaza and killed at least 5,479 students and 356 educators.”

    However, the MLA’s elected Executive Council refused to let members vote on the resolution, prompting protests at last weekend’s Modern Language Association Annual Convention.

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