Tag: overhaul

  • Texas Teachers, Parents Fear STAAR Overhaul Doesn’t Do Enough – The 74

    Texas Teachers, Parents Fear STAAR Overhaul Doesn’t Do Enough – The 74


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    Texas public school administrators, parents and education experts worry that a new law to replace the state’s standardized test could potentially increase student stress and the amount of time they spend taking tests, instead of reducing it.

    The new law comes amid criticism that the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, creates too much stress for students and devotes too much instructional time to the test. The updated system aims to ease the pressure of a single exam by replacing STAAR with three shorter tests, which will be administered at the beginning, middle and end of the year. It will also ban practice tests, which Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath has said can take up weeks of instruction time and aren’t proven to help students do better on the standardized test. But some parents and teachers worry the changes won’t go far enough and that three tests will triple the pressure.

    The law also calls for the TEA to study how to reduce the weight testing carries on the state’s annual school accountability ratings — which STAAR critics say is one reason why the test is so stressful and absorbs so much learning time — and create a way for the results of the three new tests to be factored into the ratings.

    That report is not due until the 2029-30 school year, and the TEA is not required to implement those findings. Some worry the new law will mean schools’ ratings will continue to heavily depend on the results from the end-of-year test, while requiring students to start taking three exams. In other words: same pressure, more testing.

    Cementing ‘what school districts are already doing’

    The Texas Legislature passed House Bill 8 during the second overtime lawmaking session this year to scrap the STAAR test.

    Many of the reforms are meant to better monitor students’ academic growth throughout the school year.

    For the early and mid-year exams, schools will be able to choose from a menu of nationally recognized assessments approved by the TEA. The agency will create the third test. Under the law, the three new tests will use percentile ranks comparing students to their peers in Texas; the third will also assess a student’s grasp of the curriculum.

    In addition, scores will be required to be released about two days after students take the exam, so teachers can better tailor their lessons to student needs.

    State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, one of the architects behind the push to revamp the state’s standardized test, said he would like the first two tests to “become part of learning” so they can help students prepare for the end-of-year exam.

    But despite the changes, the new testing system will likely resemble the current one when it launches in the 2027-28 school year, education policy experts say.

    “It’s gonna take a couple of years before parents realize, to be honest, that you know, did they actually eliminate STAAR?” said Bob Popinski with Raise Your Hand Texas, an education advocacy nonprofit.

    Since many schools already conduct multiple exams throughout the year, the law will “basically codify what school districts are already doing,” Popinski said.

    Lawmakers instructed TEA to develop a way to measure student progress based on the results from the three tests. But that metric won’t be ready when the new testing system launches in the 2027-28 school year. That means results from the standardized tests, and their weight in the state’s school accountability ratings system, will remain similar to what they are now.

    Every Texas school district and campus currently receives an A-F rating based on graduation benchmarks and how students perform on state tests, their improvement in those areas, and how well they educate disadvantaged students. The best score out of the first two categories accounts for most of their overall rating. The rest is based on their score in the last category.

    The accountability ratings are high stakes for school districts, which can face state sanctions for failing grades — from being forced to close school campuses to the ousting of their democratically elected school boards.

    Supporters of the state’s accountability system say it is vital to assess whether schools are doing a good job at educating Texas children.

    “The last test is part of the accountability rating, and that’s not going to change,” Bettencourt said.

    Critics say the current ratings system fails to take into account a lot of the work schools are doing to help children succeed outside of preparing them for standardized tests.

    “Our school districts are doing a lot of interesting, great things out there for our kids,” Popinski said. “Academics and extracurricular activities and co-curricular activities, and those just aren’t being incorporated into the accountability report at all.”

    In response to calls to evaluate student success beyond testing, HB 8 also instructs the TEA to track student participation in pre-K, extracurriculars and workforce training in middle schools. But none of those metrics will be factored into schools’ ratings.

    “There is some other interest in looking at other factors for accountability ratings, but it’s not mandated. It’s just going to be reviewed and surveyed,” Bettencourt said.

    Student stress worries

    Even though many schools already conduct testing throughout the year, Popinski said the new system created by HB 8 could potentially boost test-related stress among students.

    State Rep. Brad Buckley, R-Salado, who sponsored the testing overhaul in the Texas House, wrote in a statement that “TEA will determine testing protocols through their normal process.” This means it will be up to TEA to decide whether to keep or change the rules that it currently uses for the STAAR test. Those include that schools dedicate three to four hours to the exam and that administrators create seating charts, spread out desks and manage restroom breaks.

    School administrators said the worst-case scenario would be if all three of the new tests had to follow lockdown protocols like the ones that currently come with STAAR. Holly Ferguson, superintendent of Prosper ISD, said the high-pressure environment associated with the state’s standardized test makes some of her students ill.

    “It shouldn’t be that we have kids sick and anxiety is going through the roof because they know the next test is coming,” Ferguson said.

    The TEA did not respond to a request for comment.

    HB 8 also seeks to limit the time teachers spend preparing students for state assessments, partly by banning benchmark tests for 3-8 grades. Bettencourt told the Tribune the new system is expected to save 22.5 instructional hours per student.

    Buckley said the new law “will reduce the overall number of tests a student takes as well as the time they spend on state assessments throughout the school year, dramatically relieving the pressure and stress caused by over-testing.”

    But some critics worry that any time saved by banning practice tests will be lost by testing three times a year. In 2022, Florida changed its testing system from a single exam to three tests at the beginning, middle and end of the year. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the new system would reduce test time by 75%, but the number of minutes students spent taking exams almost doubled the year the new system went into effect.

    Popinski added that much of the stress the test induces comes from the heavy weight the end-of-year assessment holds on a school’s accountability rating. The pressure to perform that the current system places on school district administrators transfers to teachers and students, critics have said.

    “The pressures are going to be almost exactly the same,” Popinski said.

    What parents, educators want for the new test

    Retired Fort Worth teacher Jim Ekrut said he worries about the ban on practice tests, because in his experience, test preparations helped reduce his students’ anxiety.

    Ekrut said teachers’ experience assessing students is one reason why educators should be involved in creating the new end-of-year exam.

    “The better decisions are going to be made with input from people right on that firing line,” Ekrut said.

    HB 8 requires that a committee of educators appointed by the commissioner reviews the new test that TEA will create. Some, like Ferguson and David Vinson, former superintendent of Wylie ISD who started at Conroe this week, said they hope the menu of possible assessments districts can pick for the first two tests includes a national program they already use called Measures of Academic Progress, or MAP.

    The Prosper and Wylie districts are some that administer MAP exams at the beginning, middle and end of the year. More than 4,500 school districts nationwide use these online tests, which change the difficulty of the questions as students log their answers to better assess their skill level and growth. A 2024 study conducted by the organization that runs MAP found that the test is a strong indicator of how students perform on the end-of-year standardized test.

    Criteria-based tests like STAAR measure a student’s grasp on grade-level skills, whereas norm-based exams like MAP measure a student’s growth over the course of instruction. Vinson described this program as a “checkup,” while STAAR is an “autopsy.”

    Rachel Spires, whose children take MAP tests at Sunnyvale ISD, said MAP testing doesn’t put as much pressure on students as STAAR does.

    Spires said her children’s schedules are rearranged for the month of April, when Sunnyvale administers the STAAR test, and parents are barred from coming to campus for lunch. MAP tests, on the other hand, typically take less time to complete, and the school has fewer rules for how they are administered.

    “When the MAP tests come around, they don’t do the modified schedules, and they don’t do the review packets and prep testing or anything like that,” Spires said. “It’s just like, ‘Okay, tomorrow you’re gonna do a MAP test,’ and it’s over in like an hour.”

    For Ferguson, the Prosper ISD superintendent, a relaxed environment around testing is key to achieving the new law’s goal of reducing student stress.

    “If it’s just another day at school, I’m all in,” Ferguson said. “But if we lock it down, and we create a very compliance-driven system that’s very archaic and anxiety- and worry-inducing to the point that it starts having potential harmful effects on our kids … our teachers and our parents, I’m not okay with that.”

    This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2025/09/24/texas-staar-replacement-map-testing/. The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.


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  • Trump plans overhaul of H-1B visa favouring high paid workers 

    Trump plans overhaul of H-1B visa favouring high paid workers 

    The notice, published in the Federal Register on September 24, proposes an overhaul of the H-1B visa process to establish a “weighted selection process” favouring “higher skilled and higher paid” workers. 

    If finalised, the proposal would give greater odds of selection to workers with higher wages, if the number of applicants exceeds the 85,000-limit set by Congress, which has been the case every year for over a decade. The system would replace the current lottery selection process.

    The changes – initially put forward for White House review in July – follow a major hike in the H-1B visa fee to $100,000 announced last week, triggering widespread panic among US companies and prospective foreign employees.  

    Prior to the announcement, employers typically paid between $2,000 to $5,000 for H-1B visa applications, with Trump claiming the increase would put an end to employers “abusing” the system by hiring foreign workers at a “significant discount” in comparison to American workers. 

    As per yesterday’s proposal, prospective employees would be assigned to four wage bands, with applicants in the top band (level four) placed into the selection pool four times, those in level three entered three times, and so on.  

    The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has said the process would “incentivise employers to offer higher wages or higher skilled position to H-1B workers and disincentivise the existing widespread use of the H-1B program to fill lower paid or lower skilled positions”. 

    The department said it “recognised the value” in maintaining opportunities for lower wage earners and maintained they would not be precluded from the visa, unlike the Trump’s 2021 proposal which “left little or no opportunity” for lower earners.

    But critics argue the proposed weighted system will harm US employers’ ability to build international knowledge and fill jobs.

    “By favouring more experienced foreign workers and reducing the number of new job entrants, US companies will find themselves struggling to grow,” Intead CEO Ben Waxman told The PIE News.  

    The plans now face a 30-day public comment period before they are considered by the administration for a final rule, a process that could take several months.  

    Extensive feedback to government from US businesses on how the proposal would damage US competitiveness is widely expected, with experts also anticipating possible court challenges against the legislation.

    Early reports from Bloomberg have suggested the US Chamber of Commerce has begun polling member companies about a potential lawsuit to challenge the $100,000 fee hike.

    DHS itself has estimated that 5,200 small businesses currently employing H-1B visa holders would suffer significant damages due to loss of labour.

    “There simply are not enough American computer science graduates to support the decades-long record of US innovation and economic growth. That is the wonder of the US tech sector,” said Waxman.

    “Why would the US government want to constrain that engine?” he asked.

    With analysis by the Chamber of Commerce forecasting a continued decline in the US labour force participation by 2030, advocacy bodies such as IIE have emphasised the importance of international students to fill gaps in labour markets across the country.   

    There simply are not enough American computer science graduates to support the decades-long record of US innovation and economic growth

    Ben Waxman, Intead

    The visa, popular with tech companies, enables US employers to temporarily employ foreign workers in “specialty occupations” spanning a wide range of industries from healthcare and teaching to computer science and financial analysis.  

    Under the current system, there is a statutory annual cap of 85,000 new H-1B visas: 65,00 for regular H-1B visas and 20,000 for individuals with advanced degrees from US institutions known as the master’s cap. 

    Each year, US employers submit registrations to USCIS for each worker they want to sponsor for a visa. Typically, this number exceeds the cap, in which case, applicants are placed into a random lottery which determines who is awarded a visa. 

    Since 2012, 60% or more of H-1B workers have held a computer-related job.

    Amazon remains the single largest sponsor, with 10,000 out of its total 1.56 million employees holding H-1B visas. Microsoft, Apple and Meta have also expanded foreign hiring through this stream in recent years, according to Newsweek analysis of new federal data.

    Commentators have already warned that if the new structure is implemented, the US tech sector will ramp up offshoring facilities and jobs. “Not the outcome anyone in the US wants,” said Waxman.

    The visa program has been the subject of much debate in recent months, with Elon Musk, himself once an H-1B worker, coming out in defence of the visa against calls for its abolition from some MAGA hardliners who argued it allowed firms to suppress wages and sidelines American workers.  

    Denial rates for H-1B visas peaked at 15% during Trump’s first administration due to stricter immigration rules and the tightening of the definition of “specialty occupations”.  

    India, America’s largest source of international students, is also the top country of origin for H-1B visa holders, with Indian nationals making up 73% of new H-1B approvals in 2023.

    China was the second-most common birthplace of H-1B workers, accounting for 12% of skilled workers approved in 2023, while no other birthplace accounted for more than 2% of the total. 

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  • Now Is the Time to Overhaul Federal Regulations

    Now Is the Time to Overhaul Federal Regulations

    Researchers spend more than 40 percent of their research time complying with regulations.

    Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | kyoshino/iStock/Getty Images

    The rise of generative artificial intelligence and the Trump administration’s deregulation push make now the right time to streamline and reduce federal scientific research regulations, argues a report the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine published Wednesday.

    “At a time when the scientific enterprise is under a lot of pressure—we don’t want to pretend that’s not true—this is also a wonderful opportunity to streamline the workload not only of researchers, but of institutions and other individuals,” Alan Leshner, chair of the NASEM committee that produced the report, said at a public briefing. “We would be foolish not to take advantage of the policy climate that favors deregulation and unburdening our scientific enterprise from unnecessary, duplicative and uncoordinated rules and regulations.”

    The 125-page report, entitled “Simplifying Research Regulations and Policies: Optimizing American Science,” lays out a three-pronged framework to guide a cohesive national strategy toward implementing more economical regulations. Those prongs include harmonizing regulations and requirements across federal and state agencies and research institutions, ensuring that regulatory requirements match the risk related to the project, and using technology to make regulation-compliance processes more efficient.

    From there, the report offers a menu of 53 potential options across all aspects of research compliance, including research security, misconduct and grant management, designed for interagency adoption.

    It’s all part of an effort by the National Academies to seize this political moment and accomplish their long-standing goal of freeing scientists from the weight of often redundant, expensive and excessive regulations.

    Currently, researchers whose work is supported by grants from agencies such as the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense spend more than 40 percent of their research time complying with each agency’s varying administrative and regulatory requirements, “wasting intellectual capacity and taxpayer dollars,” according to Federal Demonstration Partnership data cited in the report.

    “There’s no question that regulation is necessary to ensure that the science we produce is of the best quality, the highest integrity and is conducted with full accountability and transparency to the American public,” said Leshner, who has previously held leadership positions at the NIH and the NSF. “Having said that, the current regulatory environment has grown to a point that it’s actually hampering innovation.”

    Despite previous calls by the NASEM and other groups to reduce regulatory burdens on researchers, few of those plans have come to fruition. Instead, data from the Council on Government Relations (COGR) shows that 62 percent of the regulations and policies federal agencies adopted or changed since 1991 were issued from 2014 to 2024.

    For example, both the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare regulate animal research, but in some cases, their requirements conflict.

    When a research project is subject to both agencies’ requirements, it can create “confusion, redundancy, and extra work,” the report says. “The natural result is for academic institutions to create additional requirements of their own to manage the complexity and risk of noncompliance stemming from regulatory complexity.”

    ‘An Urgency to This’

    Complying with inconsistent or redundant regulations also costs a lot for universities, which are now facing significant cuts to federal research funding. In 2022, COGR estimated that institutions receiving more than $100 million in federal research funds spent an estimated $1.4 million a year to comply with the NIH’s Data Sharing and Management Policy while smaller institutions spend just over $1 million a year.

    The burden of regulatory compliance can also further exacerbate research inequities.

    “Typically, the more underresourced institutions—regional state institutions, minority-serving institutions, HBCUs and tribal colleges—may not have as large of a research infrastructure or staff to handle some of the regulations that filter down from the federal level,” said Emanuel Waddell, committee member and chair of the nanoengineering department at North Carolina A&T State University. “When the infrastructure isn’t there to answer questions, that burden falls on the researchers themselves to seek out answers, and it takes away time from pursuing intellectual curiosity.”

    And with looming cuts to federal research budgets, including mass layoffs at the federal agencies that oversee research, members of the committee believe now is the time to reduce the cost of regulatory compliance if the United States wants to remain a competitive producer of scientific innovation.

    “There’s an urgency to this. We really have to get this done. Think about how constrained budgets are—we have $37 trillion debt in this country and it continues to grow,” said Kelvin Droegemeier, a member of the committee and a professor and special adviser to the chancellor for science and policy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “With relatively little cost, we can unlock a lot of money that is now being directed toward things which are not helpful and put that money toward doing research.”

    But making it happen will be up to the federal government.

    Matt Owens, president of COGR, urged federal policymakers in a statement Wednesday afternoon “to act this fall on the most actionable and timely of the options.”

    “If the administration and Congress are rightly interested in reducing regulatory burden and to promote scientific advancements, then they now have a clear roadmap for doing so efficiently and effectively,” he wrote. “What remains to be seen is whether federal policymakers will get behind the wheel, step on the gas, and accelerate through the finish line to fully deliver.”

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  • Education Dept. Hears From Public About Higher Ed Overhaul

    Education Dept. Hears From Public About Higher Ed Overhaul

    The Education Department’s yearlong effort to roll out the sweeping higher ed changes signed into law last month kicked off Thursday with a four-hour hearing that highlighted the many tweaks college administrators and others want to see.

    The law, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, capped federal student loans, created new loan-repayment plans, extended the Pell Grant to include short-term workforce programs and instituted a new measure to hold institutions accountable. Now, the department is planning to propose and issue new regulations that spell out how those various changes will work. 

    On nearly all fronts, college administrators, policy experts and students argued that lawmakers left significant gaps in the legislation, and they want a say in how Trump administration officials fill them in. For instance, the legislation doesn’t explain what data will be collected for either workforce Pell or the accountability measure or who will have to take on that task. Some speakers raised concerns about how new reporting requirements could increase administrative burdens for colleges.

    But Nicholas Kent, the department’s newly confirmed under secretary, said at the start of the meeting that he looks forward to clarifying all the details during the lengthy process known as negotiated rule making.

    “Simply put, the current approach to paying for college is unsustainable for both borrowers and for taxpayers,” Kent said. “President Trump has laid out a bold vision, one that aims to disrupt a broken system and return accountability, affordability and quality to postsecondary education that includes reducing the cost of higher education, aligning program offerings with employer needs [and] embracing innovative education models … Today’s public hearing marks a key milestone in our accelerated timeline to implement this sweeping legislative reform.”

    Neither Kent nor other department officials said what specific changes and clarifications are on the table.

    What Is Negotiated Rule Making?

    Negotiated rule making, or “neg-reg,” started in the early 1990s. It entails using an advisory committee to consider and discuss issues with the goal of reaching consensus in developing a proposed rule. Consensus means unanimous agreement among the committee members, unless the group agrees on a different definition. The department must undertake negotiated rule making for any rule related to federal student aid.

    Determining the details of the regulations and policy changes will be left up to two committees of higher education leaders, policy experts and industry representatives that will review and negotiate over the department’s proposals during a series of meetings throughout the fall and into the new year. The first committee is scheduled to begin discussions in September.

    In the meantime, here are three key issues Thursday’s speakers said they hope to see addressed by both the advising panels and department officials before the legislation starts taking effect in July 2026.

    Who’s Making the Decisions?

    Before the public hearing, some higher ed lobbyists and advocates raised concerns about who would be included on the advisory committees. Multiple constituent groups argued they weren’t properly represented on the committees.

    For instance, neither committee includes a representative from the financial aid community, despite the fact that college financial aid administrators will play a key role in implementing the legislation on campuses.

    Multiple groups, including the American Council on Education, drew attention to the absence, but Melanie Storey, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, voiced the most concern.

    Financial aid professionals will “interpret, communicate and operationalize the intricate details of this wide-ranging bill for millions of students and families. To exclude their practical, technical experience from the negotiation table risks developing rules that are difficult to administer, creating unintended negative consequences,” she said. “We have heard the perspective that representatives from each college sector can speak to the needs of their institutions. However, their role is to advocate for the broad interests of that sector. That is fundamentally different from representing the profession responsible for the … mechanics of aid delivery.

    A department official who moderated the hearing, responded, “We expect we will have financial aid administrators at the table,” as the department has in the past, but he did not clarify how that would be done. (This paragraph has been corrected.)

    Other speakers called for better representation of civil rights advocates, apprenticeship program leaders and minority-serving institutions, but none of those requests were directly addressed by government officials.

    What Qualifies as a Professional Program?

    Speakers also raised questions about how the new caps to student loans would work and whom they would affect.

    How to Make a Policy, Neg-Reg Edition

    As part of negotiated rule making, the Education Department must:

    1. Put out a public notice about intent to form a committee and hold a public hearing
    2. Publish notice inviting nominations for negotiators
    3. Hold a public hearing
    4. Pick the negotiators
    5. Hold negotiated rule-making sessions
    6. Write the proposed regulations
    7. Publish those regulations for public comment, which lasts at least 30 days
    8. Read and respond to the comments; revise the regulations as needed
    9. Publish the final rule. Rules need to be published by Nov. 1 in order to take effect July 1 of the following year, but the department can implement rules early.

    Congress’s Big Beautiful Bill caps loans for professional degrees at $200,000 and limits loans for graduate programs to half of that. But lawmakers didn’t specify which degree programs fall in which category. Determining how to sort programs will likely be a key point of debate for the rule-making committee, the comments showed.

    Certain programs, like law and medical school, will almost certainly be considered professional programs, but other programs, like master’s degrees in nursing, education or social work, are not guaranteed. Knowing this, a variety of academic association representatives, workforce advocates and college administrators made their case throughout the hearing for why their own discipline should be a professional program.

    Matt Hooper, vice president of communications for the Council on Social Work Education, said to not include certain programs in the professional bucket would mean ignoring their critical nature as a public service.

    Social work graduates “pursue careers in health care, children and family services, criminal justice, public policy, government, and more,” he said. “An M.S.W. provides full professional preparation, similar to a J.D. in law or an M.D. in medicine, and we think it should be categorized in the same respect.”

    A handful of speakers went so far as to argue that certain bachelor’s programs, like aviation or aeronautical science, that are often paired with certification from the Federal Aviation Administration should be grouped into the professional category, as they come at a cost and time commitment similar to graduate school.

    If those programs don’t get the benefit of a higher loan cap, multiple airline advocates said, America could see a steep shortage of pilots within the next two decades.

    “Over the next 15 years, nearly half of our nation’s airline pilots will retire due to mandatory age limits,” said Sharon DeVivo, president of Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology. “The current training pipeline is not equipped to meet that demand, putting at risk the transportation infrastructure, especially the economic health of small and rural communities that depend on reliable air service.”

    Training to become a pilot can cost $80,000 to $100,000 more than a traditional bachelor’s degree, added Carlos Zendejas, vice president of flight operations at the regional airline Horizon Air. So to hold these students to the same loan limit as other undergraduates would deter prospective pilots from pursuing a high-return-on-investment career.

    “The need to stabilize the pilot pipeline is real,” he said. “The One Big Beautiful Bill gives the department the ability to fix this.”

    Should Gainful Go?

    Since the inauguration, Trump officials in all sectors of the federal government have been vocal about combating fraud, waste and abuse. But higher education experts are concerned that one measure in the reconciliation bill could do the opposite.

    The new accountability tool it introduced uses a new earnings test to evaluate colleges’ eligibility for federal student loans. But it does not apply to certificate programs, which some policy and data analysts say are more likely to provide a poor return on investment.

    According to a recent report from the Postsecondary Education and Economics Research Center at American University, only 1 percent of college programs at the associate level and higher will fail the new earnings test, but about 19 percent of certificate programs would do so.

    Representatives from American as well as New America, Third Way and the Century Foundation, all progressive think tanks, sounded the alarm on the matter at Thursday’s hearing. As a solution, they encouraged the administration to keep an existing accountability policy in place that applies to certificate programs and for-profit institutions. That metric, known as the gainful-employment rule, is not codified in law.

    “A recent publication from the Senate health committee’s chairman, Bill Cassidy, confirms it was not lawmakers’ intent to exempt such programs from any accountability,” said Clare McCann, the PEER Center’s managing director of policy and operations. “So to carry out that intent, the department should maintain a strong gainful-employment program regulation for those programs that should include maintaining the debt-to-earnings tests under the gainful-employment rules, which are an important check on institutions offering unaffordable degrees.”

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  • The LLE finally gets a Labour overhaul

    The LLE finally gets a Labour overhaul

    If you still imagined that the Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE) would mean that a student studying any module from any course would be eligible for 30 credits of funding, it’s long past time to disabuse yourself of that notion.

    Under the latest plans, eligibility only extends to short courses dealing with those subjects identified as national priorities – via a somewhat tenuous link to the industrial strategy – along with HTQ modules. Everything else in higher education will be funded by year of study, as is currently the case.

    If you were thinking that this latest round of changes – taking us even further away from the initial dreams of Boris Johnson (or even Philip Augar) – completes the long gestation of the LLE in full detail you will be disappointed. For instance, the credit transfer nettle has yet to be grasped – with a consultation due in early 2026, not far in advance of the September 2026 soft launch. And there are, as we shall see, a number of other issues still dangling.

    It’s a continuation of DfE’s gradual retreat from a universal system of funding that was supposed to transform the higher education landscape. No variable intensity, a vast reduction in modular availability – it just allows some of the short courses that universities and colleges already offer to be funded via the loan system (a measure, lest we forget, of dubious attractiveness to learners).

    A bridge to nowhere

    The Lifelong Learning Entitlement (originally known as the Lifelong Loan Entitlement) was announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson on 29 September 2020, as a part of the government’s lifetime skills guarantee:

    we’ll expand and transform the funding system so it’s as easy to get a loan for a higher technical course as for a university degree, and we’ll enable FE colleges to access funding on the same terms as our most famous universities; and we’ll give everyone a flexible lifelong loan entitlement to four years of post-18 education – so adults will be able to retrain with high level technical courses, instead of being trapped in unemployment.

    Like most of Boris’ wheezes it was originally somebody else’s idea – in this case Philip Augar. He had a few more specifics:

    The government should introduce a single lifelong learning loan allowance for tuition loans at Levels 4, 5 and 6, available for adults aged 18 or over, without a publicly funded degree. This should be set, as it is now, as a financial amount equivalent to four years’ fulltime undergraduate degree funding. Learners should be able to access student finance for tuition fee and maintenance support for modules of credit-based Level 4, 5 and 6 qualifications. ELQ rules should be scrapped for those taking out loans for Levels 4, 5 and 6.

    But it makes more sense to think of the idea as being 100 per cent Boris in that it was a massive infrastructure initiative that he had no clue how to actually deliver (in all honesty, not much of Augar was deliverable either – perhaps that was the attraction). As has proved to be the case.

    As you were

    Let’s start by looking at what’s unchanged, following the latest revisions. The timeline for getting started remains as was: applications from September 2026 for courses and modules starting in January 2027. This still feels extremely optimistic. Plus – as has been the case for a while – a staggered rollout of standalone modules is planned, rather than an enormous platter of bitesize options spread out to pick from come next September.

    The use of the current plan 5 student loan model, with its 40-year term and nine per cent repayment rate above what is currently around minimum wage, is still there – with all the peculiarities this will inevitably engender. If anyone was expecting a large scale shake-up of the student finance system any time soon, this should serve as an enormous hint that no radically new model is arriving in the short to medium term.

    Also retained from DfE’s planning under the Conservatives is the system of “residual eligibility”, meaning how much loan is available to those who have already, for example, studied one undergraduate degree. You still get the equivalent of four years overall, though with lots of wrinkles.

    The aspiration for each member of the public to have an LLE personal account continues – this will still include, in theory, information on one’s loan balances, an application tracker, and advice and guidance on career planning.

    And in broad strokes the government’s rationale for the LLE persists: more flexible routes through tertiary education, support for upskilling and retraining throughout one’s career, and the promise of more learner mobility between institutions.

    Picking winners

    The LLE is replacing England’s entire student funding system, and so funding for full years of study at levels 4 to 6 – such as degrees or higher technical qualifications – will flow through it. In many cases, though, this is just a shift on paper.

    What’s always been the more significant change is how it will bring the funding of individual modules into scope, along with the resulting interplay between single modular courses and larger programmes of study in a learner’s lifelong journey.

    Modular provision that would be eligible had previously been defined as “modules of technical courses of clear value to employers” – this is now rejigged to:

    modules of higher technical qualifications, and level 4, 5 and 6 modules from full level 6 qualifications, in subject groups that address priority skills gaps and align with the government’s industrial strategy.

    We flagged this link between the LLE and the industrial strategy priority areas when the latter was published last month – and the updated LLE policy paper does say that DfE has worked with Skills England to assess skills priorities, though there is no detail on this.

    What we very much don’t get is a mapping between LLE subjects and the industrial strategy sectors (the IS-8), or the priority sub-sectors and their corresponding links to certain regions or clusters which is, y’know, what the industrial strategy is all about. Arguably the main bone thrown to the industrial strategy is the concept of the government “picking winners” – but note there is no stumping up of public funds to support this.

    So we get a list of which subject groups will be in scope for modular study:

    • computing
    • engineering
    • architecture, building and planning, excluding the landscape gardening subgroup
    • physics and astronomy
    • mathematical sciences
    • nursing and midwifery
    • allied health
    • chemistry
    • economics
    • health and social care.

    Common Academic Hierarchy (CAH) fans will be delighted to spot that this appears to have been done (with the curious landscape gardening exception) at the very top level. These are very broad subject groups, which will contain multiple subjects with questionable relevance to the industrial strategy.

    While on the face of it there is some ambiguity about whether this subject list refers to only level 6 qualifications, or to these and higher technical qualifications (HTQs), the accompanying provider preparation guide makes clear that the subject groups here are for level 6 qualifications only – and provision via HTQ modules covers many other subject areas, which in some cases overlap. This currently includes subjects such as business and administration, education and early years, legal and accounting, and many others – but these will need to go through the HTQ approval route.

    The provider preparation guide suggests that institutions should be looking at their current degree provision, working out where it aligns to the priority skills gaps areas that DfE has identified, and then proceeding from there in thinking about what could be modularised. All modular study, remember, needs to form part of an existing designated full course which the provider delivers – we’re a long way from some of the previous visions of universities coming up with new stand-alone bitesize offers.

    All the other funding eligibility rules for modular provision remain – they must have a single qualification level at level 4, 5 or 6, they must be at least 30 credits (though bundling up modules to meet that minimum is allowed), and a standardised transcript of some form to be determined must be delivered upon completion, to facilitate credit transfer.

    But there is one change to eligibility rules – modular provision must not be delivered through franchised arrangements. This had always sounded like a recipe for disaster. The government has been gradually setting its face against a lot of existing franchising activity, given concerns about quality and reports of fraud.

    Getting approved

    The previous plan for approving modules (outside of HTQs) for LLE eligibility was what was being labelled a “qualifications gateway”, which the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education consulted on last January. This terminology has been scrubbed entirely out of the policy paper now, with just a note that “we will set out details on how level 4 to 6 Ofqual regulated qualifications could enter the market and access LLE funding.”

    But there’s a new approval process in town – providers who are interested in delivering modular provision from January 2027 will need to submit an expression of interest, from this month.

    This process will involve an “assurance check” – seemingly run centrally by DfE, rather than Skills England as might have previously been expected. There’s a wonderful flowchart in the provider guide, which you may or may not be able to read depending on how enormous your screen is:

    That’s right – TEF! Providers with gold or silver will have access to a “simpler and quicker approval process” for modular provision. Those who do not will be asked to provide additional information around “readiness, capability and successful delivery of the parent course.”

    Hang on, you cry, doesn’t the fact a provider is registered with the Office for Students demonstrate that it has “readiness” and “capability” to deliver courses of any type? Well, yes, it does. It is possible that DfE simply doesn’t trust OfS to make this kind of judgement – which would point to a rather larger issue with higher education regulation – or it could be that this is a last gasp attempt to give TEF awards some regulatory relevance.

    This is also the case for those rated “good” or “outstanding” for Ofsted provision – and if Ofsted inspects your skills provision and you have a TEF award, they both need to make the grade. Now headline Ofsted assessments were supposed to disappear from September 2025, which makes this all a bit confusing.

    If you don’t deliver HTQs or appropriate level 6 qualifications, it’s noted that modular provision is anticipated to “gradually expand when appropriate to do so” and so you may, one day, come in line for eligibility.

    Regulatory issues

    One of the areas the previous version of the policy paper promised was further information on the regulation of modular funding. This, rather oddly, is no longer listed under “next steps”, given that the update we do get is relatively slim.

    What we might have expected was a follow-up to the Office for Students’ call for evidence on positive outcomes for students studying on a modular basis – a call for evidence which closed in November 2023, and we’ve heard little of since. As DK set out at the time, the quasi-consultation asked how things like the B3 conditions could apply to individual modules, and the regulator’s initial thinking seemed to be that completion would still be a valuable metric for regulation, as would progression – though exactly how progression was assessed would need to be refined.

    There’s still no news on this complicated issue. The new section of regulation focuses more on registration categories, while noting that DfE “will refine the existing regulatory framework to ensure it is proportionate, is targeted [and] supports a high quality, flexible system.” If you were thinking that a whole new approach to learning would need a new oversight framework, the direction of travel suggests not.

    The bigger regulatory news is that, likely to the surprise of few, the idea of having a third registration category for smaller providers offering level 4 and 5 qualifications has been scrapped. Instead the government will extend the current system of advanced learner loan funding for levels 4 to 6 until the end of summer 2030. This will give unregistered providers more time to apply for OfS registration in one of the two existing categories, though OfS is scheduled to consult in autumn 2025 on proposals to disapply some conditions of registration for providers in the further education statutory sector (which already has a regulator looking after most of this stuff).

    Maintenance chunks

    As expected, student maintenance support will be available on a pro-rata basis (depending on course, location, and personal circumstances) in an equivalent way to the existing undergraduate offer. Because this support is intended to deal with “living costs”, DfE has decided to continue to restrict availability to students attending in person – there’s nothing for online or distance learning.

    Additional targeted grants (most likely this just refers to existing disabled students’ allowance and such like) will still be available – but there’s more to come on this later this year, alongside more guidance on maintenance generally. We can perhaps hope that a forthcoming announcement modifying the decades-old system (or even just the parental income thresholds) is playing a part in this delay.

    That feeling of entitlements

    Another area where things have mostly stayed the same is the personal entitlement for tuition fee funding equivalent to four full-time years (480 credits, currently £38,140) of traditional study – with the welcome clarification that where a provider charges less than the maximum the cash value rather than the credit value will be deducted from the total. Maximum borrowing is for 180 credits a year (which would just about cover a year of an accelerated degree). And for existing graduates (with the frankly wild caveats as before) there will be an entitlement to funding equivalent to unused residual credits.

    But what happens when your balance reaches £0? No more learning for you? Not quite – a “priority additional entitlement” may be available (fees plus maintenance) in order to complete a full course in a small number of subjects (medicine, dentistry, nursing and midwifery, allied health professions, initial teacher training, social work).

    For those who follow career paths that require five years or more of study (veterinary surgery, architecture part 2, an integrated masters in Scotland) there will be a “special additional entitlement” of up to two years, again covering fees and maintenance. There’s also additional entitlements for those who take foundation years, placement years, or study abroad years. It’s by-and-large a smoothing-out of some of the unintended consequences with existing provision where representations had been made.

    Plus, importantly, the government will now play a part in mitigating circumstances – if you are resitting a year because of “compelling personal reasons” (illness, bereavement) you will have the costs of your study covered. And resits on longer courses will be covered anyway.

    The credit transfer question

    “The LLE and modular provision will provide a pathway to strengthen opportunities for credit transfer and learner mobility,” the new version of the paper states. While no-one would deny that the LLE could be a “pathway to strengthen opportunities,” especially given how tepid the phrasing is, there has still been essentially no progress on the thorny question of credit transfer.

    The largely new section on “recognition of prior learning, credit transfer, and record of learning” sets out aspirational areas where the government thinks it can work collaboratively with the sector – to promote pathways between providers, to improve guidance for both incoming and outgoing learners, and to generally square the recognition of prior learning circle despite all the intractable problems therein.

    Interestingly, DfE also wants institutions to embed all this into “broader strategies for widening access”. It’s not immediately clear how this will come off – but we get the note that this year will bring an update on “proposed changes that will start to embed this flexibility and greater learner mobility across LLE funded provision.” This might be a reference to the post-16 education and skills white paper.

    To facilitate all this flexibility, DfE had previously said it would be introducing a “standardised transcript template.” Tellingly, this has now been revised down to “a standardised transcript as part of modular funding designation.” So it appears the plan is now to look at enforcing this standardisation for the (potentially scant) modular provision that the LLE will generate, while sidestepping the much bigger question of how portability between modules and larger qualifications including degrees will work. This is a substantial scaling down in ambition – and yet it’s still a complicated thing to get agreed implemented in little over a year.

    What’s next

    As is probably coming across, there is still an awful lot yet to be confirmed. Secondary legislation to implement the LLE fee limits and funding system still needs to be laid. Fee loan limits for non-fee capped provision are pending confirmation. The Student Loans Company needs to get its systems ready.

    There will be another consultation too, in addition to OfS’ further education one. While it’s not mentioned in the updated policy paper, the accompanying provider preparation guide reveals that the Department for Education will consult on “learner mobility across LLE-funded provision in early 2026” (maybe this will be the moment when credit transfer finally gets sorted out once and for all). Opening a consultation in early 2026 when big chunks of the whole shebang are supposed to be ready to go that September does not necessarily inspire confidence.

    And the drip-by-drip announcements about the policy plumbing of the LLE mean that it’s a long time since the government has really restated its belief that there is demand out there for modular provision, or committed to working to drum some up. Really it’s baffling why this week’s announcements haven’t been packaged up with the skills white paper, as surely they must form part of a wider vision. Some clarity within this about overlaps and interplay with the apprenticeship levy would have been welcome too.

    The provider preparation guide entreats institutions to start thinking about how they will market modular provision, which is a tricky question given the absence of demand that pilots have demonstrated. But one of the examples given is particularly problematic:

    if you seek to target mature students, do you need to start building relationships with local employers and/or recruitment agents, rather than only relying on existing recruitment channels?

    This isn’t a new addition to the guidance – but since the last update, Bridget Phillipson has told Parliament that the government will “take immediate action on the use of agents to recruit students,” adding that “the government can see no legitimate role for domestic agents in the recruitment of UK students,” following the Sunday Times franchising investigation fallout. So DfE is at the same time banning the use of domestic agents – or at least it said it would – while acknowledging that recruitment to modular provision might be tricky without them.

    It’s of a piece with much of the preparation guide – the responsibility to iron out the holes in the LLE’s business case is being passed onto providers. Supposedly over the rest of the year universities and colleges should be reviewing everything from accommodation to wrap-around support, while building up relationships with employers and potentially rewriting their academic regulations. All while plenty remains unclear at the sector level. It would be unsurprising to see providers reluctant to leap into the approvals process right away, and instead assess how others fare.

    Given all this, it’s perhaps unsurprising that the ambition of the LLE has diminished a little bit each time the policies around it have been updated. We’re a long way from where we started.

    Probably the most damning assessment you could make is that, were Labour to have opted to cancel the whole LLE and just allow students to take out loans for a handful of higher education short courses tenuously linked to industrial strategy priorities, the sector would be in a very similar situation to the one it is in now. And – given clear indications of lack of student demand, and common sense assessments of the general public’s appetite for more tuition fee debt wrapped up in confusing bitesize-but-lifelong repayment obligations – few would think it was a good idea.

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  • Future of STEM Workforce in Jeopardy Amid NSF Overhaul

    Future of STEM Workforce in Jeopardy Amid NSF Overhaul

    Erik Jacobsen, an associate professor of mathematics education at Indiana University, was nearing the end of a years-long project designed to address teacher biases with the goal of helping more students excel in math and pursue STEM careers. But that all stopped several weeks ago, when the National Science Foundation notified him that it had terminated the grant because it was “not in alignment with current agency priorities.”

    Jacobsen’s grant, which was funding multiple graduate students and a postdoc, who are all now in limbo, is far from the only STEM education–focused grant the NSF recently canceled.

    Of the approximately 1,500 grants the agency recently terminated, at least 750 came from the NSF’s education directorate, according to Grant Watch, an independent website that tracks terminated NSF grants. And that’s not the only shake-up happening at the NSF, which Congress created in 1950 to “promote the progress of science; advance the national health, prosperity and welfare; and secure the national defense.” The Trump administration has also laid off staff and proposed slashing the agency’s budget.

    Additionally, NSF announced new priorities that include not funding projects aimed at recruiting more Americans from underrepresented backgrounds to the STEM workforce—a key focus for the agency historically.

    The Trump administration says all these changes are part of its plan to reform the NSF, correct an alleged “scientific slowdown,” build a “a robust domestic STEM workforce” and “rapidly accelerate its investment in critical and advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing and biotechnology.” The NSF sends billions to colleges and universities to support STEM education and nonmedical scientific research.

    Researchers and policy experts are worried that the major cuts to STEM education programs will jeopardize the long-term future of the STEM workforce and leave the nation with a deficit of scientists and other skilled workers who are capable of carrying out Trump’s vision of winning “the technological race with our geopolitical adversaries.”

    “There may be enough scientists to do the projects that are left. But for how long? They’re eventually going to retire and there won’t be this robust pipeline,” Jacobsen said. “There’s so many kids in our country that learn math and science every day. And the reason they learn it as well as they do is because of NSF’s historic investment in education.”

    ‘Nearsighted’ Changes

    Since Trump started his second term in January, the NSF has upended its operations and spurred chaos and uncertainty within the research community. In February, the agency fired 10 percent of its staff—many who help university researchers navigate the grant application and funding process—though a federal judge later ordered the NSF to reinstate some of those employees.

    “Their absence means that even if the budget is sufficient to fund new projects, distributing that money fairly and appropriately is going to be delayed if not made impossible,” Suzanne Ortega, president of the Council of Graduate Schools, said. While those and other changes are already “having immediate effects on graduate students, postdocs and early-career scientists,” she said there will also be “major downstream consequences” that won’t come home to roost for at least five years.

    According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment in STEM occupations is expected to grow 10.4 percent between 2023 and 2033, more than double the projections for non-STEM careers. But decimating the NSF’s education directorate—which funds many projects focused on researching how to improve STEM education outcomes starting in K-12—will make it harder to cultivate the robust STEM workforce Trump says he wants, Ortega said.

    “This kind of research tells us how we can develop curricula that makes the pathway from a Ph.D. program into industry more seamless. Or how we can create mentoring networks or other kinds of connections that foster more rapid degree completion,” she said. “To forget that education research itself is vital to improving the system that our research enterprise depends on is very nearsighted.”

    Adding to the challenges is the Trump administration’s crackdown on international student visa holders—who make up a sizable portion of STEM graduate students—which could make strengthening the STEM career pipeline increasingly difficult, said Holden Thorp, editor in chief of the Science family of journals.

    “We desperately need more effort to produce scientists who are U.S. citizens,” he said. “Regardless of whether those programs are devoted to marginalized groups or anyone else, there’s people we need to encourage to go into science. Even if you don’t accept the reason why some of these programs were set up. It’s a disastrous economic strategy to get rid of programs—especially when they were in midstream—that would be growing the supply of scientists in the American workforce.”

    As these changes keep coming, the NSF remains without permanent leadership. Sethuraman Panchanathan—the Trump appointee who had run the agency since 2020—resigned in late April, stating that he’d done all he could “to advance the critical mission of the agency.”

    Earlier this month, the NSF announced a plan to cap indirect cost rates—which fund laboratory space and other research supports that can be used for multiple projects—for universities at 15 percent. At the same time, Trump’s budget bill proposed cutting the NSF’s 2026 budget by 55 percent, which includes cutting $3.5 billion from the agency’s general education and research budget, $1.1 billion from the Broadening Participation programs and $93 million for agency operations and awards management.

    A coalition of former NSF directors and National Science Board chairs blasted the proposal, saying it “would thwart scientific progress, decimate the research workforce and take a decade or more to recover” and “fast-track China’s plans for technological dominance.”

    Although Congress will have to approve Trump’s budget proposal later this year for it to become law, the NSF is already preparing for a future with less funding.

    According to Science, NSF has eliminated 37 divisions across its eight directorates and is also creating a new oversight body of unknown membership that will have the final say in reviewing a proposal to ensure it doesn’t violate the agency’s new anti-DEI priorities. Additionally, the NSF announced earlier this month that it plans to cut more than half of its senior administrations and slash the number of “rotators”—academic scientists who serve two- to four-year terms to help the NSF choose which research to fund—as part of its cost-saving strategies.

    That has big implications for NSF-funded initiatives like the Advanced Technological Education (ATE), which is a congressionally mandated effort led by community colleges designed to improve and expand educational programs for technicians to work in high-tech STEM fields that drive the U.S. economy.

    “ATE is heavily influenced by rotators from community colleges,” said Ellen Hause, associate vice president for academic and student affairs at American Association of Community Colleges. “With the rotators on the chopping block, we would lose some of this expertise not only in STEM technician education, but in the community college space, which is a unique piece of the STEM workforce and STEM education.”

    Many of the future community college students who may want to participate in a program like ATE in the coming years are just now getting exposure to STEM fields in their K-12 classrooms. And projects like Jacobsen’s (the math education researcher at IU) were supposed to help more of those students get comfortable with the academic material required to pursue such careers. But canceling his and other STEM education research grants midstream is already undermining decades of federal investment in STEM education, he and others said.

    “We’d already done most of the work and spent most of the money,” he said. “By not having the final amount, we can’t complete our work, which means the public doesn’t get the benefit of the knowledge we would have learned. We still don’t know if the tool we were developing works. And now we’ll never know. It’s just wasting that investment.”

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  • Incremental Change or System Overhaul? An Update on Higher Ed Reform in NZ with Roger Smyth

    Incremental Change or System Overhaul? An Update on Higher Ed Reform in NZ with Roger Smyth

    In some countries, higher education policy just seems to sit still for decades. In others, hyperactivity is a more normal state. Today we’re looking at the 2020s poster child for higher education hyperactivity. It’s not the usual suspects, the UK or Australia, it’s little New Zealand where we’re making our fourth stop on this podcast in just over two and a half years.

    When last we were in Wellington, we talked to Chris Whelan from Universities New Zealand about university underfunding the consequences of losing international students, and something called the University Advisory Group, which was supposed to set the national system on a new course along with a research advisory group who weirdly was made up of exactly the same people only following a different mandate.

    Since then, while these groups were noodling on how best to steer the system, the government made two big table flipping moves. One musing about creating a new type of institution, which was neither a university nor a college, and nobody knew what they were talking about, and the other simply deciding it wasn’t going to fund any more research in the social sciences and humanities through its research granting system. Fun times.

    Anyways, with all this excitement, we figured it was worth going back to the Tasman Sea to check in with one of our regular correspondents, Roger Smyth. He’s a former senior New Zealand public servant and now a consultant based in Canterbury. He’s got all the skinny for us. And so, over to Roger.

    The World of Higher Education Podcast
    Episode 3.32 | Incremental Change or System Overhaul? An Update on Higher Ed Reform in NZ with Roger Smyth

    Transcript

    Alex Usher (AU): Roger, the last time we did a show about New Zealand, we had Chris Whelan from Universities New Zealand on, and we talked a lot about the University Advisory Group process. How far along is that work, and what are people in the sector saying about it? What’s the view at this stage? Is there still interest and momentum behind the process, or has it stalled out a little?

    Roger Smyth (RS): Okay, so the advisory group submitted an interim report late last year, and it’s scheduled to submit its final report this month. I understand that the report has now been submitted, but nothing has been published yet. Neither the interim report nor the final report, nor any of the dozens of submissions made in response to the UAG’s questions, have been released publicly.

    In these sorts of cases, the report usually isn’t published until the government has had a chance to make its initial decisions on some of the high-level questions—and that could still be a little way off.

    Of course, as you implied, Alex, there are rumors. And in some of the face-to-face consultations, the UAG has given a bit of a steer as to where it was heading. For instance, it’s pretty clear that in their interim report, they were proposing a machinery of government change—a reorganization of some of the government agencies in higher education, such as the Tertiary Education Commission, the Ministry of Education, and the policy unit responsible for research and innovation. But we won’t know that for sure until the report comes out.

    One of the big challenges the advisory group would have faced is that the government is committed to returning to a financial surplus in the 2027–28 fiscal year. That’s a significant challenge, with major demands on the budget. So the advisory group would have been instructed to make their proposals fiscally neutral, and that’s a big constraint on what they could recommend.

    My main view on this whole process is that it was never really clear what problem the University Advisory Group was set up to solve—apart from a general instruction to look for improvement and to make the system work better. One of the most distinctive features of the New Zealand system is its homogeneity. That has a lot of positives—it means that wherever you go, you’re guaranteed a reasonable level of quality. But it also has the downside that there isn’t really any outstanding, world-leading university.

    AU: Let me stop you there, because alongside the University Advisory Group, there’s also been a commission on research—on research and science—a review going on at the same time. Why did that happen in parallel rather than together?

    RS: Yeah, I think that’s an important point. The first thing is that the two advisory groups were actually chaired by the same person—Peter Gluckman, a distinguished medical scientist and academic—and they began operating at roughly the same time.

    You can see there was a desire to think about knowledge transfer opportunities within universities and how they contribute to the broader economy and the wider science system.

    The Science Advisory Group has now completed its report. It’s been submitted, and the government has published its initial decisions. This is an area where the review proposed a very substantial overhaul of the machinery of government. They proposed creating a super ministry for higher education, science, technology, and innovation.

    The government, however, did not accept that proposal. Most governments are a bit wary of major machinery-of-government reshuffles unless there’s a very strong rationale. These kinds of changes often involve a settling-in period where the system can lose its way, as people jockey for position and the focus shifts away from the core goals the system is meant to achieve.

    Instead, the review also proposed merging the seven non-university research institutes into a single public research organization. The government opted for a partial reorganization, establishing three public research organizations—focused on the bioeconomy, earth sciences, and health and forensic science. They’re also creating a new organization to cover advanced technology fields like AI, synthetic biology, aerospace, and quantum tech. So that’s probably a reasonable foundation for advancing the science system.

    AU: But of course, before they even got to that point—before the advisory group had reported—the government unilaterally made a change to what’s called the Marsden Fund. That’s sort of like our combination of the social sciences, humanities, and natural science councils. And it effectively nuked the humanities and social sciences, as I understand it. They basically said, “We’re not going to fund those anymore.” Why did the government do that? Why undercut your own report before it even comes out?

    RS: Yeah, this was definitely a decision that caused a lot of pushback and consternation—real ill feeling in universities and across the broader community.

    Most of the government’s research funding is directed toward major national strategic priorities, so it tends to go to areas like health, the hard sciences, engineering, agriculture—things like that. The Marsden Fund was one of the few avenues where humanities researchers could secure external funding, outside of what universities provide internally.

    I think part of this decision reflects the government’s desire to place greater focus on the hard sciences. If you look at the Marsden Fund trends, the social sciences and humanities panel had been gaining a slightly larger share of the funding in recent years, which naturally came at the expense of the hard sciences. So in some sense, this was a declaration that the government wants to reorient support toward areas seen as having greater economic impact.

    That said, the main driver was probably to send a message. But in doing so, it sent a very negative signal to the humanities community. Even researchers in the now-favored areas were concerned about the loss of this funding stream—particularly given that social science research can produce huge social value.

    AU: This tension between favored STEM subjects and less-favored fields like the social sciences, humanities, and business is also playing out in discussions around the government’s funding model. My understanding is that in New Zealand, the funding model essentially funds places. So, the government allocates a certain number of places to each institution. Now we’re projecting that there will be more enrollments than there are funded places, and the government would like to provide a bit of additional funding for STEM subjects, but not for others. We’re very familiar with this in Canada—it’s exactly what’s happening in Ontario right now. I’m curious how you think that will play out in New Zealand?

    RS: Okay, well, just to give a bit of context on the financial situation of the universities: like most Anglophone countries with a heavy reliance on the international student market, COVID hit New Zealand universities hard. In 2021, the impact was cushioned by a surge in domestic enrollments. The labor market was weak due to the pandemic, so more people turned to study, and universities did okay financially.

    But in 2022, following government stimulus measures, the labor market recovered and became more robust. Domestic enrollments fell sharply, and the international student market still hadn’t bounced back. That made 2022 the worst financial year ever for the universities. Six of the eight were in deficit, and one was just breaking even.

    In 2023, when finances were still tight, there was a lot of concern about university viability. The government stepped in with a short-term funding rate boost—not an increase in the number of places, but an increase in the dollars per place.

    Then there was a small increase in funding again last year. But the broader funding review never happened. The government changed, and that process was superseded by the UAG process we discussed earlier.

    And that process, as we said, is likely to avoid anything that would seriously impact the government’s bottom line. So, the universities have been in a tough situation.

    But now, the international market is starting to recover. It’s been slower than in the other countries we compete with, but in EFTS terms—equivalent full-time students—2024 saw an 11% increase in international enrollments. It’s still below pre-pandemic levels, but the trend is positive. And that matters because each international student generates about 60% more revenue than a domestic student.

    Right now, we’re in the middle of the financial reporting season. Five of the universities have reported for 2024. One reported a small deficit on its core business, but it was much lower than expected and offset by a surplus on its wider trading operations.

    So, it’s still tough—marginal—but not as gloomy as it was a couple of years ago.

    Even though there’s still pressure, and enrollments may be shifting toward more expensive fields, financially speaking, the worst appears to be over. The system is beginning to grow again.

    And on the point about STEM versus other fields—it’s worth remembering this is a system driven by student choice. The government doesn’t have much influence over where students choose to go. So, no matter how the government might want to steer things, it can’t really control those choices under the current policy environment. So, I’d say that the universities are managing through this.

    AU: Roger, I want to get into something I read recently—there was a fascinating article where the government, or at least the minister, was musing about the idea of creating a new type of tertiary institution. Something that’s not quite a university and not quite a polytechnic.But before I ask you about that, I think we need to give our listeners a bit of background on polytechnics in New Zealand.

    Your system merged all the polytechnics into one big national institution just before COVID, right? That was Te Pūkenga. Why do that? What was the point of one national institution? It’s a big country—two islands, 15 campuses. That’s a lot to bring together. What was the thinking behind that?

    RS: These reforms had two separate sources.

    First, we talked earlier about the financial challenges in the university sector, but the polytechnics were facing a real financial crisis. They’d been growing for years and carried high fixed costs, with relatively small student numbers spread across multiple campuses.

    Between 2012 and 2019, domestic enrollments dropped by about 25%. By 2019, nearly all the polytechnics were running deficits, and the sector’s collective deficit was quite substantial. So something clearly had to be done.

    Second, the government looked at what had been done in Australia. In New South Wales, for example, they merged all the TAFE institutions into a single statewide TAFE. It worked reasonably well there, and in Queensland as well.

    So they decided to follow a similar path and merge all 16 institutions—along with all work-based training—into a single national organization. That was the rationale behind the creation of Te Pūkenga.

    AU: What about the un-merger? So, a few years later you get a new government—the National government—and they’re going to undo the whole thing. Was that because it was, as you said, a machinery-of-government issue? Or was it more about a shift in how the government views vocational education?

    RS: I think it was both.

    Let’s look at both sides. First, the merger didn’t go well. There were some good aspects to the reforms. For instance, they set up six Workforce Development Councils to set standards for training and take a forward-looking view of labor market needs in specific fields. That was a positive.

    The idea of reintegrating polytechnic and work-based training into one coherent trades training system was also a good one. But the merger was very poorly executed.

    Costs blew out, and after three years they still hadn’t settled on a functioning operating model. There was almost no progress on the actual integration of work-based and polytechnic-based training. The initial chief executive didn’t work out and had to go.

    So that was one rationale for reconsidering—or unpicking—the merger.

    But the second reason was political. The incoming minister in 2023 had previously been a very successful chief executive of one of the polytechnics that was merged into the national institution.

    She was deeply committed to undoing the merger and restoring control to regions and local communities. So, the government came in with a clear policy to do this, and she got the ministry, and things got moving quickly.

    But, of course, life’s not that simple. No one wanted to go back to a system everyone agreed had serious problems. So how do you reconcile those two positions?

    After two years of back and forth, we’re now getting close to the new model. Those six Workforce Development Councils—the best part of the previous reform—are being disbanded and replaced with smaller organizations focused mainly on setting standards.

    The polytechnics, which remained as divisions within the larger organization, have all gone through what are called ruthless efficiency reviews to determine what could be dropped or changed to make them financially viable.

    We haven’t seen the full results of those yet, but some institutions will likely be deemed viable and split off as standalone, autonomous polytechnics. These will focus partly on trade training, but also on foundation education and some degree-level programs. Those will become autonomous institutions.

    But for those polytechnics that aren’t viable in the long term, they’ll be required to join a federation anchored by the Open Polytechnic, which delivers programs online. The idea is that those institutions can draw on the federation’s expertise and infrastructure to complement their face-to-face delivery with online components.

    AU: So I don’t want to ask you what’s going to happen, but I do want to ask when it’s going to happen—because there are a whole bunch of moving parts here, and you’ve got an election coming up. Is there enough time for the government to unwind all of this before the next election? Because I know, for example, with the Universities Accord process in Australia, the report came out well before the election, and even then, they couldn’t get everything done before voting day. So, what’s the pace of decision-making here?

    RS: The first thing is that if we look at the University Advisory Group, we should see the results of that fairly soon. I’d expect it within a couple of months—possibly even sooner. It might come out all at once, or it could follow the science review model, where there were high-level interim decisions released first.

    My sense of the brief given to the UAG is that we’re not going to see truly transformational change—nothing on the scale of the three big reviews we’ve had in the past: 1961, 1989–90, and 2002–03.

    So I’d expect incremental change rather than sweeping reform. And because of that, I think the university review will largely settle before the election.

    In contrast, the un-merging of Te Pūkenga and the broader vocational education reforms will take longer.

    Under the new arrangements, there will be greater integration between workplace and institutional training. Polytechnics and private providers will be allowed to act as arrangers and supervisors of work-based training.

    But implementing that integration will take time. There’s a two-year transition period, starting in 2026—which is the election year. So the un-merging process will only be partly complete when voters go to the polls.

    That said, I think this process will continue to play out slowly over time. Hopefully, it results in something positive.

    Despite everything—despite what will have been six years of turbulence and ongoing uncertainty—I do believe the sector will move forward with reasonable operating models.

    AU: May you live in interesting times. Roger, thanks so much for joining us today.

    RS: Thank you very much, Alex.

    AU: And that just leaves me to thank our excellent producers, Tiffany MacLennan and Sam Pufek—and you, our listeners, viewers, and readers—for joining us. If you have any questions or comments about today’s episode, or suggestions for future ones, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at [email protected]. Run—don’t walk—to our YouTube page and subscribe. That way, you’ll never miss an episode of The World of Higher Education.

    Join us next week when our guest will be David Lloyd. He’s the remarkable individual who serves as both the Vice Chancellor of the University of South Australia and the co–Vice Chancellor of the University of Adelaide. How does he manage it? Those two institutions are on the brink of what’s likely the biggest institutional shakeup in Australian higher education since the Dawkins reforms of 1988. He’ll be here to talk about the merger, how it came about, and what the future looks like. Until then—bye for now.

    *This podcast transcript was generated using an AI transcription service with limited editing. Please forgive any errors made through this service. Please note, the views and opinions expressed in each episode are those of the individual contributors, and do not necessarily reflect those of the podcast host and team, or our sponsors.

    This episode is sponsored by KnowMeQ. ArchieCPL is the first AI-enabled tool that massively streamlines credit for prior learning evaluation. Toronto based KnowMeQ makes ethical AI tools that boost and bottom line, achieving new efficiencies in higher ed and workforce upskilling. 

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  • AAERI seeks visa overhaul for Australia’s student system

    AAERI seeks visa overhaul for Australia’s student system

    The Association of Australian Education Representatives in India (AAERI), in a submission to the Minister for Home Affairs and the Minister for Education, has urged the Labor government to link student visas to the institution of initial enrolment.

    The association, established in October 1996 to uphold the credibility of education agents recruiting students for Australian institutions, proposed that any change in course or institution should require a new visa application, with the existing visa automatically cancelled upon such a change.

    “This proposed reform means that a student’s visa would be directly linked to the education provider (institution) listed in their initial Confirmation of Enrolment (CoE) at the time of visa approval. The student would be required to remain enrolled at that institution,” read a statement by AAERI.  

    The association expalined that if a student wishes to change their course or education provider, they must obtain a new CoE from the new institution, apply for a fresh student visa, and once again demonstrate that they meet all Genuine Student requirements.

    “Such a measure will strengthen the integrity of Australia’s student visa program, reduce exploitation in the education sector, improve compliance with Genuine Student (GS) criteria, and safeguard Australia’s reputation as a provider of high-quality international education,” it added. 

    “Additionally, this reform will support ethical education agents and reputable institutions by discouraging course-hopping and misuse of the student visa system, thereby enhancing student retention and sector stability.”

    Such a measure will strengthen the integrity of Australia’s student visa program, reduce exploitation in the education sector, improve compliance with Genuine Student (GS) criteria, and safeguard Australia’s reputation as a provider of high-quality international education.
    AAERI

    Based on AAERI’s submission, such a policy would align with Condition 8516, which requires students to remain enrolled in a registered course at the same level or higher than the one for which their visa was originally granted.

    As per reports, education loan applications from India, one of Australia’s biggest student markets, have quadrupled since the Covid pandemic, with the number of loan-seeking students expected to rise further.

    With many students relying on Indian public and private banks for education loans, changes in their courses in Australia have often led to their original loans being considered void, placing many at significant financial risk.

    “Based on our communication with several Indian banks, if a student changes their course or education provider after arriving in Australia, their loan arrangements may need to be reassessed, taking into account new course fees, institution credibility, and repayment ability,” stated AAERI. 

    “The original loan is void and stands suspended. This poses significant financial risks for students and impacts their compliance with visa conditions.”

    According to AAERI, the problem is also prevalent among Nepali students, with nearly 60,000 currently studying in Australia. 

    The association also highlighted examples from other study destinations that Australia can learn from in implementing the proposed framework. 

    While New Zealand allows course or provider changes but may require a variation of conditions or a new visa, especially for pathway visa holders or when moving to lower-level courses, in the UK, the student visa system is closely tied to licensed sponsors through the Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies, so changing institutions generally requires a new CAS and immigration permission.

    In Canada, stricter rules have been implemented requiring international students to be enrolled at the Designated Learning Institution named on their study permit, and to change institutions, students must apply for and obtain a new study permit, emphasising the importance of linking visas to specific institutions.

    “Australia’s recent reforms, such as closing the concurrent CoE loophole and requiring CoEs for onshore visa applications, are steps in a similar direction but do not go far enough to address the core issue of unethical student poaching, misuse of student visa and provider switching,” stated AAERI. 

    AAERI’s call for action comes at a time when the return of the Labour government is viewed as “offering little comfort to an international education sector already under-siege”, as highlighted in a recent article by Ian Pratt, managing director of Lexis English, for The PIE News.

    In Anthony Albanese’s second term, the Prime Minister established a new role – assistant minister for international education – and appointed Victorian MP Julian Hill.

    “It’s important that students who come here get a quality education… This sector is complex and Julian Hill is someone who’s been involved as a local member as well, and I think he’ll be a very good appointment,” Albanese stated at a press conference this week. 

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  • Student Loan Overhaul Clears House Committee

    Student Loan Overhaul Clears House Committee

    Over strong objections from Democrats, House Republicans on the Education and the Workforce Committee advanced legislation Tuesday that would make dramatic changes to the federal student aid system.

    For a full Inside Higher Ed analysis of what provisions are included in the reconciliation bill, read here.

    The sweeping 103-page bill, known as the Student Success and Taxpayer Savings Plan, passed on a party-line vote after more than five hours of debate. The legislation would cap the amount of federal loans a student can take out, cut off the Pell Grant for students who attend less than half time, consolidate income-driven repayment plans and introduce a risk-sharing program where colleges are partially responsible for unpaid student loans. The bill, which would also reverse multiple Biden-era student borrower protection regulations, could save more than $330 billion in federal funding over 10 years, committee Republicans say.

    It’s just one section of a larger budget bill that lawmakers are planning to use to fund some of President Donald Trump’s top priorities, like lofty tax cuts for the wealthy and a major crackdown on immigration. But House Republicans said the changes were more than just a means to fund his MAGA agenda.

    “If there is any consensus when it comes to student loans, it’s that the current system is effectively broken and littered with incentives that push tuition prices upward,” Rep. Tim Walberg, a Michigan Republican and committee chair, said in his opening statement. Higher education is “on a fiscally unsustainable path, so we must deliver on the promise of economic mobility to our students and families. Taken together, the provisions in this package will do just that.”

    Democrats on the committee argued the legislation is nothing more than a means to fund tax cuts for the wealthy that will force low-income and racial minority students to take on more debt and penalize the community colleges, regional universities and minority-serving institutions that educate those students. All in all, the bill will put the cost of a college degree out of reach for many, they said.

    “I appreciate that my colleagues acknowledge that the cost of college is too high, and that Congress should reform the system. But the committee print before us today … seriously misses the mark of making college more affordable,” said Rep. Bobby Scott, a Virginia Democrat and ranking member on the committee. “Put bluntly, this Republican proposal will limit how much money middle- and low-income students can borrow from the federal government.”

    Scott and other Democrats proposed 33 amendments—all of which Republicans voted down. They ranged from requests to prove the bill wouldn’t disproportionately affect certain institutions and increase costs for students to defending the Pell eligibility of part-time students and some consumer-protection regulations. Democrats also proposed replacing the income-driven repayment plan in the legislation with a more generous Biden-era alternative and striking the bill entirely. Other amendments touched on other issues unrelated to this section of the legislation, such as proposed cuts to Medicaid and the Department of Government Efficiency’s access to sensitive data.

    Republicans countered that Democrats’ allegations that the bill would make college less affordable were, as Rep. Burgess Owens of Utah said, “nothing further from the truth.” The proposed changes to the federal aid system will lead to better loan terms and repayment options that are also fair to taxpayers and avoid wasteful spending, they argued.

    The bill will now head to the House Budget Committee, where it will be folded into a complex omnibus bill before it is sent to the floor for a full House vote.

    But even if it clears the House, the legislation still has a long way to go. The House and the Senate have differing ideas about how much federal spending they wish to cut and what programs they are willing to slash. The Senate is aiming to make at least $1 billion in education cuts, which is less than 1 percent of the House committee’s $330 billion reduction.

    This reconciliation bill only needs a simple majority vote, or 51 yeas, to pass the upper chamber, but that will require almost all Republicans in the Senate to agree, which experts don’t think is a foregone conclusion.

    Risk Sharing

    One of the more contentious proposals in the bill is the risk-sharing provision, which would require colleges to repay the government a portion of students’ unpaid loans.

    Republicans on the committee described the risk-sharing proposal as critical, adding that it would penalize colleges for forcing their students into unmanageable debt and would incentivize them to lower their cost of attendance.

    “The best way for us to do that is not to loan [students] more money, but to reduce the cost so that they don’t need the loans,” said Rep. Randy Fine of Florida, who has been active in higher ed in the Sunshine State. “That’s what this bill does over and over and over again.”

    But Democrats said it is misleading to say the bill and provisions like risk-sharing would reduce costs and increase graduation rates, arguing it would actually incentivize colleges to accept fewer low-income students and increase tuition or cut critical student-support programs in order to foot the bill of new penalties.

    Rep. Alma Adams, a Democrat of North Carolina, called risk-sharing “a dire threat” especially to historically Black colleges and universities, which would have to pay an average of $1.7 million per year to account for the debt of their graduates.

    The students at these institutions “started behind but are determined to get ahead,” Adams said, adding that they don’t default because they are failing; they default because they are “carrying the burden of generations of inequity.”

    “This bill will tell colleges to take only the best students and leave the rest behind,” she added.

    Multiple student advocacy and higher education groups opposed risk-sharing and other proposals in letters to the committee and fact sheets.

    Third Way, a left-of-center think tank, noted in a memo Monday that the concept of risk-sharing “has a lot of intuitive appeal,” but the proposal “misses the mark for meaningful accountability.” Other provisions like loan limits and changes to the Pell Grant program will also “drive students into the private loan market,” the memo added.

    And the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities told the committee that, if passed, risk-sharing would amount to a “staggering level of federal overreach” that penalizes colleges and universities for “decisions beyond their control.”

    “The gravity of these changes would have a far reaching impact to current and future students,” APLU wrote. “There is a better way.”

    If Republicans “truly believed” the bill would not raise the cost of college and the burden of debt for students, then they would have no problem passing proposed amendments that certify its impact on students and institutions, said Adams, the North Carolina Democrat.

    “Let’s be clear about what this really means: This bill punishes students for being poor. It punishes students for needing to work. It punishes students for living in the real world,” she said. It transforms financial aid “from a bridge into a barricade.”

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  • Florida board approves extensive gen ed overhaul

    Florida board approves extensive gen ed overhaul

    Students at Florida State University can cheer on the Seminoles across multiple sports, but they can no longer learn about the namesake tribe of Indigenous Americans as part of FSU’s general education offerings after the Florida Board of Governors approved sweeping curriculum changes Thursday.

    Florida colleges have spent months rethinking their general education requirements following a change in state law. Thursday’s vote marked the final step in a contentious and controversial process that brought significant changes to all 12 state universities. Critics accuse the board and system officials of taking a heavy-handed approach and targeting specific topics or courses, while state officials have argued revisions were necessary both to simplify the curriculum and to strip it of “indoctrination.”

    Now, American History 583: The Seminoles and the Southeastern Indians is one of hundreds of courses across Florida’s public universities that will no longer count toward general education credit as part of the extensive overhaul. Neither will Black Women in America or LGBTQ History, both of which were previously included as general education offerings at FSU. Those are just three of numerous courses touching in some way on race, gender or sexuality that institutional boards voted in recent months to drop from general education. All 12 Boards of Trustees then submitted a pared-down list of classes to FLBOG for approval. Three Bible courses remain eligible for general education credit at FSU.

    (An FSU spokesperson noted in an email to Inside Higher Ed that American History 583, which currently has about 150 students enrolled this semester, will now be offered as an elective. Pressed on the rationale for why the course was dropped from gen eds, FSU did not respond.)

    Florida State University’s Board of Trustees dropped a course on Seminole history from the list of general education offerings, but fans can still cheer on the Seminoles.

    Chris Leduc/Icon Sportswire/Getty Image

    State lawmakers required colleges in 2023 to review general education classes in an effort to cut “courses with curriculum based on unproven, speculative or exploratory content,” according to materials shared with the Board of Governors in a presentation for Thursday’s vote.

    The Florida Board of Governors unanimously approved the new suite of gen ed classes Thursday, though some members tried to downplay the notion that the state was trying to limit knowledge.

    “We are not prohibiting universities from offering courses,” Timothy Cerio, chair of the Academic and Student Affairs committee, said at the meeting. Instead, he emphasized that those courses are just being removed from general education curriculum and will remain available as electives.

    State University System of Florida chancellor Ray Rodrigues depicted the vote on general education as stripping indoctrination from curricular offerings. Rodrigues argued that the American public has lost faith in higher education, citing a recent Gallup poll that noted shrinking public confidence in the sector. Among the reasons for that diminished confidence, particularly among Republican respondents, is the belief that colleges push liberal agendas.

    “The general education curriculum that was approved today makes Florida the only state in the nation to address the No. 1 reason why the American people have lost confidence in higher education,” Rodrigues said during the meeting. “We can confidently say that our general education courses that students have to take in order to graduate will not contain indoctrinating concepts.”

    ‘Political Overreach’

    But critics allege administrators have overstepped, as curriculum has traditionally been the faculty’s purview. They also worry that removing courses from general education will cause enrollment in such classes to plummet, limiting the number of students who will be introduced to certain majors like sociology—a discipline state officials have taken aim at for an allegedly liberal tilt—which will subsequently weaken academic departments and potentially decrease staffing levels.

    United Faculty of Florida, a union representing 25,000-plus professors, denounced the move toward scaled-back general education offerings.

    “Florida is at the forefront of an assault against public education, restricting the subjects students can study from K-12 to the colleges and universities,” UFF declared in a news release ahead of Thursday’s vote, casting FLBOG’s actions as “bureaucratic and political overreach.”

    “General education courses are the foundation of critical thinking and informed citizenship, and censoring them limits not only what students can learn but also what they can become. These proposed cuts are an insult to our students and to the world-class faculty that instruct and guide them,” UFF president Teresa M. Hodge said in a Monday webinar ahead of the meeting.

    Hodge argued that the courses being targeted were just “words and numbers on a spreadsheet” to the Florida Board of Governors, but “for the rest of us, they are the future of our students, our jobs, and our democracy” and the “foundation of critical thinking” and “informed citizenship.” She also accused Republican governor Ron DeSantis, who pushed for the legislation that led to the changes, of prioritizing “his personal political ambition” over students.

    Robert Cassanello, a history professor at the University of Central Florida, argued on the call that it was lawmakers—not professors—who were attempting to indoctrinate students.

    “They tell us that classes have to be removed from the curriculum that focus on race, gender and sexuality, but at the same time, they want courses and lessons on the centrality of Western civilization, free-market libertarianism and patriotic histories of this country infused into the general curriculum and life on our campuses,” Cassanello said.

    Students on the call also noted that general education courses set them on career pathways.

    Tessa Barber, a graduate student at the University of South Florida, began college as a biology major but is now working toward a doctorate in politics and international relations. She attributed that change to general education courses in anthropology and political science that pushed her in a different direction. She expressed concern about “political interference” in the education of undergraduates.

    Some speakers at Thursday’s meeting also pushed back on the gen ed overhaul.

    Jono Miller, president of NCF Freedom, a group that has been critical of the state’s conservative takeover of New College of Florida, alleged that the overhaul of its core curriculum was “rushed and chaotic” with “minimal faculty input” and a “lack of transparency.” Miller argued that “telling faculty what to teach translates directly to telling students what to think.”

    Thursday’s vote followed prior action on general education courses from the State Board of Education, which oversees the 28 institutions in the Florida College System. Earlier this month that board removed 57 percent of FCS general education courses, according to state officials.

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