Barely a third of social scientists believe their university would promote them based on the strength of their research impact, a global poll of researchers has found.
Asked whether their institution would promote or give tenure to a scholar for their efforts to apply research outside academia, only 37 percent of 1,805 social scientists surveyed by Sage agreed.
Only 28 percent of respondents said their efforts to make a difference outside academia would lead to additional research funding from their institution, while just 35 percent said their university offered awards or prizes to recognize impact.
Thirty percent of the survey’s respondents, who came from 92 countries, say they receive no recognition at all for this work.
Instead, the survey by the U.S.-based social sciences publisher suggested institutions tend to value and reward publication in highly cited journals more than academics. Asked whether the ultimate goal of research is to make a positive impact on society, 92 percent agreed this is the case for themselves, but only 68 percent believe it’s true for institutions.
“I don’t care about impacting my colleagues and being cited—I want to impact practice in the field,” explained one U.S.-based respondent, who added there is “no good way to know if this happens.”
“All the other metrics (like rejection rates, Google scores) are internal to the discipline and don’t really measure anything useful,” the researcher continued, according to the Sage report, titled “Do Social Scientists Care If They Make Societal Impact?” and published Tuesday.
Similarly, 91 percent of researchers agree the ultimate goal of research is to build on the literature and enable future research, but only 71 percent think the leaders at their institution agree with this.
That perceived misalignment between the motivation of social scientists and institutions should prompt a rethink on whether prestige metrics used in academia are misaligned with values, argues the Sage report.
It notes that researchers value peer regard more than citation metrics, yet they perceive that administrators prioritize impact factors, creating tension in tenure and promotion decisions.
“At times, this means we have to challenge the status quo of what matters in higher education—for example, by moving beyond an overemphasis on scholarly impact measures [and] toward recognizing research that benefits people through policy, practice and public life,” said Ziyad Marar, president of global publishing at Sage.
“It’s important that we listen closely to researchers themselves as we do this work—understanding what motivates them, where they focus their efforts and what barriers stand in their way. This report does exactly that,” he added.
Rachael Sirianni is one of the thousands of research scientists whose work has been decimated by the Trump administration’s massive cuts to the National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies.
“My lab is crumbling,” said the pediatric brain cancer researcher, who works at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School. “Over the course of the last eight months, I’ve had to shutter more than half of my research program.”
At the same time, she has a backlog of papers she’s still trying to get published in journals that are the best fit for her research and career, including several that charge thousands in fees to make the paper free to access. And if she wants her work to comply with a new NIH policy to expedite public access to federally funded research—part of the agency’s effort to restore trust in science, it says—she may have to start paying even more.
The 2024 Public Access Policy, which took effect July 1, requires federally funded researchers to deposit their accepted peer-reviewed article manuscript into an open-access repository, such as the NIH-managed PubMed Central, immediately after a journal accepts it for publication. But researchers are reporting that some journals, including at least several high-impact titles owned by Elsevier, Wiley and Springer—are charging authors anywhere from $2,000 to more than $10,000 in article processing charges (APCs) to make their work immediately accessible.
While researchers can use their NIH grants to pay for APCs, that’s hard for some to justify in such a precarious funding environment.
“If I had full access to the institutional dollars that normally support my research program, or if I really believed that that grant that scored well is eventually going to get funded, I could risk my research dollars on these open-access fees,” Sirianni said. “But because of the trauma that the Trump administration is imposing on scientists across the country, we are faced with impossible decisions. Do we dedicate our money to the experiments? Do we maintain our research personnel? Do we comply with open-access fees?”
Open-access advocates and experts say that predicament is exposing the limits of the government’s ability to rein in the $19 billion scholarly publishing industry, which is fueled by academic incentive structures that reward researchers for publishing frequently in widely cited, prestigious journals. Meanwhile, the publishing industry—which has long opposed immediate open access in part because it threatens subscription-dependent business models—says the rollout of the policy gives them no choice but to charge APCs.
Zero Embargo
The 2024 policy replaces the 2008 Public Access Policy, which allowed publishers to embargo new peer-reviewed federally funded research articles for 12 months before making them publicly available. That embargo period allowed publishers to turn a profit from selling academic libraries subscriptions to exclusive content; authors who wanted to make their papers publicly accessible before the embargo was lifted typically paid an APC.
The government’s goal in lifting the embargo was to promote “equity and advance the work of restoring the public’s trust in Government science, and to advance American scientific leadership,” Alondra Nelson, the former acting director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, wrote in a 2022 memo bearing her name. “A federal public access policy consistent with our values of equal opportunity must allow for broad and expeditious sharing of federally funded research—and must allow all Americans to benefit from the returns on our research and development investments without delay.”
Although the Biden administration finalized the policy, the Trump administration is carrying it forward. It was set to take effect across federal agencies on Dec. 31, but NIH director Jay Bhattacharya announced in April that he was implementing it six months ahead of schedule to promote “maximum transparency.”
Although Sirianni supports the spirit of NIH’s new open-access policy, she’s worried that high APCs will deter researchers from submitting their work to influential journals that might otherwise be a good fit, to the detriment of the scientific literature.
“There’s absolutely going to be a lot of work that doesn’t get published or gets published in the wrong journal,” Sirianni said. “This policy is harming scientists. Instead of ensuring that research dollars are invested in providing knowledge to the scientific community and to the public, those dollars will be spent on feeding giant publishing corporations more money.”
‘Not Sustainable’?
However, publishers say the NIH’s zero-embargo policy is forcing them to recoup lost subscription revenue through APCs to sustain operational costs, including article selection, curation, peer and editorial review, publication, archiving, and maintenance.
“We are unable to support approaches that aim to make subscription articles immediately and freely available, which are not sustainable in the long term given they undermine the subscription model on which they depend,” an Elsevier spokesperson said in an email to Inside Higher Ed.
“The best method for addressing issues of cost in publication is through a vibrant, competitive, and dynamic publishing marketplace with maximum author choice, including fee-based public access and read-and-publish agreements,” Carl Maxwell, senior vice president of public policy for the Association of American Publishers, who lobbied against the zero-embargo policy, wrote in an email. “We don’t think it’s a good idea to compel researchers to use a one-size-fits-all open access business model that has the potential to require NIH-funded researchers to pay out of pocket to fund the peer review process, in some cases harming their ability to communicate their research results to the scientific community and the general public.”
Caroline Sutton, CEO for the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers, added that researchers’ frustration with the NIH’s new open-access policy “reveals one of the real human impacts of well-intentioned policies that do not fully consider the operational realities of the research ecosystem.”
It also raises long-standing questions about how to sustain that ecosystem.
“Should the responsibility for funding this work lie with the funder? With the research or institutional library? Should publishers not be compensated?” she wrote in an email. “And how can the critical system of checks and balances—which must be resourced—endure if it is not sustainably funded?”
But another sector sustaining the scientific publishing industry is the faculty who produce and peer review research for little to no financial compensation. The most productive are often rewarded instead with tenure, promotion and cachet.
Holding Articles ‘Hostage’
While the NIH policy doesn’t require authors to publish in journals that charge APCs—plenty of reputable, fully open-access journals exist—researchers say where they publish matters to their careers. At most universities, frequently publishing research in prestigious, high-impact journals—including many with hefty APCs—carries more weight with tenure and review committees than publishing in more obscure journals.
But researchers aren’t always clear on a journal’s APC guidelines until they get through the review process and are asked to pay open-access fees to comply with the NIH policy, Rachel Widome, a public health professor at the University of Minnesota, told Inside Higher Ed. She withdrew an article from the Elsevier-owned Sleep Health on how school start times impact adolescents after she realized she’d have to pay a $2,500 fee to upload her accepted manuscript to PubMed Central in compliance with NIH policy.
“When that happens, they’re holding your article hostage,” she said. “Do you start from scratch and submit it to a new journal? It can take six to nine months to go through another review.”
She ended up resubmitting the article to Sleep Health after her NIH grant ended, exempting her from the zero-embargo policy. Although “time has been wasted,” she said the APCs stand to hurt early-career scientists the most. “It’s so critical that they establish a publication record,” Widome said. “If the options of which journals they can submit to are really limited [because of APCs], that hurts their chances of getting her research out and launching her career.”
‘Valuing Prestige’
But those academic incentive structures have also emboldened publishers to levy APCs in response to the NIH’s zero-embargo policy, said Dave Hansen, executive director of the Authors Alliance, a California-based nonprofit that supports authors in disseminating their work.
“So much of the system is wrapped around valuing prestige journals that are published by some of these bigger commercial publishers. That’s really hard for even a big institution like the NIH to nudge researchers away from,” Hansen said, adding that the NIH could de-emphasize prestige factors when evaluating researchers. At the same time, “a lot of publishers recognize that there’s a massive amount of federal funding that they can now demand access to because of this new federal policy.”
The zero-embargo policy isn’t the NIH’s only attempt to regulate the scientific publishing industry. This summer, Bhattacharya proposed capping APCs to weaken the market power of publishers, dilute the scientific elite and “make science accessible not only to the public but also to the broader scientific community, while ending perverse incentives that don’t benefit taxpayers,” he said. But critics say the plan is neither comprehensive enough to dismantle academic incentive structures, nor likely to substantially lower APCs.
And the frustration researchers are experiencing in the early days of the NIH’s new zero-embargo access policy—which was crafted with some of the same goals as the NIH’s proposed APC caps—is already offering support for those predictions.
“The NIH public-access policy applies to a vast amount of research, but it’s also just a percentage of the overall landscape. There are a number of players here, including the funders, researchers, institutions, publishers and libraries,” said Katie Funk, former program manager for PubMed Central, who helped develop the zero-embargo policy.
“Without addressing the whole system, it just causes confusion,” she added. “Larger conversations need to be had about the costs of publishing. It’s not transparent and it’s pervading the whole system.”
(This article has been updated to correct the name of the UMass medical school.)
Professor Steven Jones on behalf of the Council for the Defence of British Universitie
Published:
HEPI’s new Policy Note finds striking consensus across the higher education community for more ethical, transparent and balanced university governance.
Summarising responses to the draft Code of Ethical University Governance from the Council for the Defence of British Universities (CDBU), this Policy Note finds that 81% of the 129 submissions received endorse the principle of a new ethical code. This signals a widespread recognition that governance structures must better reflect the educational and public missions that universities serve.
The revised CDBU Code directly responds to the concerns raised in the consultation and offers practical ways to reduce power imbalances, avoid insular decision-making and bring greater transparency to governor recruitment.
The author of this report, and the author of a second report HEPI is publishing on governance in the run-up to Christmas will be at a free webinar on governance issues running on Thursday, 11 December 2025 from 10am to 11am. Sign up now to hear our speakers explore the key issues.
Multiple public and private universities announced job and program cuts, as well as other money-saving measures, last month in response to financial challenges driven by a range of factors.
Some institutions noted the loss of federal research funding, while others cited declining international enrollment amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on foreign students. Still others pointed to sectorwide challenges, including the worsening public perception of higher education. And some colleges cut low-demand programs to comply with state laws such as Ohio’s Senate Bill 1.
Here is a look at job and program cuts as well as other moves announced last month.
The center has been the state’s designated energy research institute since 1975.
UCF officials told the news outlet in a statement that the university “made the difficult but necessary decision to reduce staffing at the Florida Solar Energy Center to ensure responsible stewardship of university and state resources,” noting that the center was not financially sustainable.
University officials also cited a decline in external funding, which hampered research activities, as well as “recent shifts in federal funding priorities in energy research, including reductions and cancellations of key programs that historically supported the center’s research activities.”
In addition to cuts at the Florida Solar Energy Center, UCF also laid off six employees in its technology department and two workers at the UCF Arboretum, The Orlando Sentinel reported.
Lewis University
Citing a significant decline in international students, the private university in Illinois is cutting 10 percent of its workforce through a combination of layoffs and buyouts, Shaw Local reported.
Altogether, 63 people are on the way out.
The university reportedly laid off 17 staff members and 16 professors and eliminated some vacant roles. Some eligible employees opted into early retirement programs offered by the university.
Lewis officials told the news outlet that international enrollment has collapsed, dropping from a peak of 1,417 students to just 847 this fall. That decline comes amid a flurry of action at the federal level, where the Trump administration has sought to limit international enrollment and increased scrutiny of foreign college applicants as it takes a hard line on immigration policy over all.
Calvin University
The private Christian university in Michigan is shedding jobs and programs as part of a restructuring that will see multiple faculty members laid off over two years, MLive reported.
Calvin is cutting 12.5 percent of the faculty. While the university did not specify a precise head count, it employed 363 faculty members last fall, 197 of whom were full-time, according to its Common Data Set. Based on those numbers, Calvin appears poised to cut as many as 45 professors.
University officials declined to provide the exact number of jobs cut to Inside Higher Ed.
“Most of these departures are voluntary (e.g., retirements, voluntary exit incentive packages, etc.), and many were identified during budget planning that occurred within the academic division last year,” President Greg Elzinga wrote in an email to the campus community last month announcing the changes. “Involuntary departures will amount to approximately 3% of our current full-time faculty workforce, and those impacted have already been notified.”
Elzinga also told MLive that Calvin’s finances remain strong and it is on track for a balanced budget for the current academic year, despite sectorwide challenges such as diminishing public confidence in higher education and international enrollment declines stemming from federal policy changes. Visa processing delays reportedly cost Calvin 65 international students who were unable to make it to campus.
Rider University
The private university in New Jersey announced last month that officials plan to lay off 35 to 40 full-time faculty members, cut salaries by 14 percent and enact other cost-cutting measures as it navigates financial challenges.
President John R. Loyack wrote in a letter to the campus community that the university was taking steps to address “the financial risks that have grown increasingly serious in recent years and have intensified in severity in recent months.” He noted that the university faces “a significant cash shortfall” due to “new and unforeseen developments” and could run out of money “to meet its payroll and other obligations before the end of the current fiscal year.”
Rider also plans to indefinitely suspend retirement contributions, increase faculty workloads, end faculty tuition remission benefits and cut some senior administrative roles, among other moves.
The university was placed on probation by its accreditor, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, in late October due to compliance concerns related to financial standards.
Keene State College
Grappling with a $4 million budget deficit, the public college in New Hampshire is cutting 25 staff positions and offering voluntary separation agreements to faculty, The Keene Sentinel reported.
Of the 25 staff positions cut last month, eight were reportedly vacant.
So far, 12 faculty members have accepted buyouts, reportedly in line with the goal of 12 to 15; eight of those professors will exit after the fall semester and four will leave in the spring.
Roger Williams University
The private university in Rhode Island is mandating unpaid furloughs for up to half of its full-time workforce in an effort to shrink a projected $3.5 million budget gap, The Boston Globe reported.
According to the newspaper, layoffs are not currently being considered.
A university statement described the mandatory, unpaid one-week furloughs as a “temporary measure that will allow the university to preserve positions, wage increases, and healthcare benefits for our dedicated staff and faculty, while maintaining the student experience.”
University of Providence
A split from the Providence Health System has prompted officials at the private Catholic university in Great Falls, Mont., to ask its Board of Trustees to declare financial exigency, NBC Montana reported.
While Providence Health has provided financial support, that arrangement is reportedly set to end in December 2027 and the university must become financially independent, which means plugging an $8 million budget shortfall. University officials told NBC Montana that it previously relied on $8 million or more in health system support to balance its budget.
Layoffs and program cuts are expected to be part of the financial recovery plan.
Cornell College
Multiple programs are set to be eliminated at the private liberal arts college in Iowa, a process that officials said in a statement last month was driven by student enrollment data and interest.
Majors being cut include classical studies, French and Francophone studies, German studies, religion, Spanish, and multiple music programs. Students enrolled in those majors will be able to complete their degrees through teach-out plans, according to the announcement.
An unspecified number of job cuts will accompany the program eliminations.
The New School
The private university in New York City announced last month that it is offering faculty buyouts, freezing hiring for certain positions, cutting pay for some employees and pausing retirement contributions for up to 18 months, among other changes, in an effort to balance its budget.
Further, the New School plans to pause admission to most doctorate programs for next year. Program closures are also expected.
President Joel Towers wrote last month, “The New School continues to face serious and persistent financial deficits that require immediate decisive action.” Now the university is offering early retirement packages to professors and voluntary separation packages to employees, as well as cutting top salaries by 5 to 10 percent. Still, he wrote that job cuts “will very likely be necessary” depending on “participation in voluntary programs” and “progress toward our budget goals.”
University of Lynchburg
Faculty buyouts are on the table at the private liberal arts college in Virginia as it seeks to reduce a persistent budget deficit it has been whittling down for the past three years, Cardinal News reported.
That deficit has reportedly dropped from $12 million in late 2022 to about $2.7 million currently.
Programs on the chopping block, all at the undergraduate level, include an integrated major in math and English, medieval and Renaissance studies, music theory, and musicology, among others. Students currently enrolled will be able to complete those programs before they are terminated.
Signed into law earlier this year, SB1 bans diversity efforts in higher education and requires colleges to drop undergraduate programs that yield fewer than five degrees annually, averaged over a three-year period. However, colleges can ask the Ohio Department of Education for waivers to keep such programs, which Ohio State has done for a dozen offerings.
This blog includes personal reflections shared at the 2025 Independent Higher Education Conference by James Pitman, Outgoing Chair of IHE and Managing Director U.K. and Ireland, Study Group.
International education is important to many IHE members but for some of our biggest members, including my own organisation Study Group, it is our entire business.
Government policies on international education over the last 15 have been less than supportive, and some in the last 2 years have been materially value destructive for the UK.
The Dependents Visa – policy and discrimination
The removal of the Dependants visa in 2024 and questions over the Graduate Route cost the UK 54,000 international students in 2024 vs 2023. That is worth £6 billion at today’s values, and over £2 billion in receipts to the exchequer each year. Certainly the dependants visa had a major flaw, but it was one that could have been corrected rather than withdrawing the whole visa scheme entirely for taught degrees.
As predicted by the sector, that withdrawal was gender discriminatory, leading to the loss of 19,000 female students vs the prior year, in the January 2024 intake alone. Every one of those was a human story, of ambitions denied, families fractured, careers restricted and yet again women being discriminated against – in this case by UK government policy. It is particularly ironic, considering the importance the UN Sustainable Development Goals place on women’s education as arguably the most effective way of lifting a whole society.
Such discrimination is also a risk with the tightening of the BCA metrics to barrier levels that no other export sector has to endure, such that universities are already withdrawing completely from certain countries. This is collateral damage that will stop those good students that do exist in every country from coming to study in the UK. Compliance absolutely yes, but constriction beyond what is rational – that is a step too far.
This government makes much of taking decisions that are in the interests of the UK and not overtly political; and they tell us that they are driving growth and jobs. And yet the loss of international students almost always leads to the loss of jobs in every region of our country, most especially those that need inward investment the most and will find it hardest to fund an alternative.
Those lost 54,000 international students lost us well over £1 billion in inward investment, and the UCU says nearly 15,000 jobs have been lost in Higher Education, many probably at graduate level.
Research from Oxford Economics and others implies that you can double that with job losses in local economies and supply chains. So, some 30,000 jobs lost or at risk with no substitution possible, as those students have already taken their £1 billion elsewhere. When Tata Steel’s Port Talbot plant announced 2,800 job losses, with more in the supply chain, this was front-page news. Where are the headlines that ask for immediate intervention to prevent ten times that impact?
The International Student Levy – the new export tax
Which brings me on to the International Student Levy, or more correctly, an export tariff or jobs tax. The Institute for Fiscal Studies calls it a ‘tax on a major UK export’.
Whether the tariff goes on international student fees – which research indicates will lose us 16,000 students straight away – or is absorbed by universities (which they are in no position to cope with) jobs will be lost. The loss of 16,000 students implies 4,000 jobs at risk in higher education and 4,000 more jobs in local economies. Martin Wolf in the Financial Times earlier this week wrote, ‘the proposed…tax on international student fees is a dagger aimed at one of the UK’s most successful export industries’. Who can disagree!
The Government is arguing that there is no alternative to fund domestic student maintenance (which to be clear is a worthy cause for support). I can’t be the only one who can think of an obvious alternative. Current US policy is hammering the competitiveness of the market leader, so that offers the UK a golden opportunity, if government would only work with the sector to grow our international education exports rather than endlessly restricting them.
Back of the envelope calculation indicates that recovering only half of the students we lost in 2024 because of government policy would generate the required income to the exchequer to fund those maintenance grants sustainably and create jobs, not destroy them.
The Graduate Route subsidy
Finally the Graduate Route, which is an incredibly sensible tool to encourage students to study here and contribute after graduation, but which also subsidises UK tax payers and the NHS specifically, every year that it is available to international students. Why? If you pay the same Income Tax and National Insurance as a domestic equivalent but can, by law, only access less than half the services that are paid for from those taxes, then that is a subsidy in my book.
We should all hope the Graduate Route visa is here to stay, but it has already been shortened by six months and the consequences could yet be dire. According to the ICEF, an Indian graduate on an average salary may take 25 years to repay the cost of undergraduate study in a Russell Group university – 36 without two years of post study work. As families calculate return on investment in a challenging market for graduate employment, nibbling away at policies that allow an opportunity to recoup investment may risk it altogether.
Education not immigration
A year ago, I recommended to the IHE conference that the Government needed to decouple international students from the toxicity of immigration politics, which research shows much of the public also supports. They have not done so and show no inclination to do so.
Education and immigration must be decoupled if we are to ever escape relentlessly self-harming policies. Until they do so, I am afraid that their maxim of doing what is right for our country and not just what is supposedly popular is destined to continue to ring very hollow for international education, one of our greatest exports and probably greatest source of influence for good.
This blog was kindly authored by Liam Earney, Managing Director, HE and Research, Jisc.
The REF-AI report, which received funding from Research England and co-authored by Jisc and Centre for Higher Education Transformations (CHET), was designed to provide evidence to help the sector prepare for the next REF. Its findings show that Generative AI is already shaping the approaches that universities adopt. Some approaches are cautious and exploratory, some are inventive and innovative, and most of it is happening quietly in the background. GenAI in research practice is no longer theoretical; it is part of the day-to-day reality of research, and research assessment.
For Jisc, some of the findings in the report are unsurprising. We see every day how digital capability is uneven across the sector, and how new tools arrive before governance has had a chance to catch up. The report highlights an important gap between emerging practice and policy – a gap that the sector can now work collaboratively to close. UKRI has already issued guidance on generative AI use in funding applications and assessment: emphasising honesty, rigour, transparency, and confidentiality. Yet the REF context still lacks equivalent clarity, leaving institutions to interpret best practice alone. This work was funded by Research England to inform future guidance and support, ensuring that the sector has the evidence it needs to navigate GenAI responsibly.
The REF-AI report rightly places integrity at the heart of its recommendations. Recommendation 1 is critical to support transparency and avoid misunderstandings: every university should publish a clear policy on using Generative AI in research, and specifically in REF work. That policy should outline what is acceptable and require staff to disclose when AI has helped shape a submission.
This is about trust and about laying the groundwork for a fair assessment system. At present, too much GenAI use is happening under the radar, without shared language or common expectations. Clarity and consistency will help maintain trust in an exercise that underpins the distribution of public research funding.
Unpicking a patchwork of inconsistencies
We now have insight into real practice across UK universities. Some are already using GenAI to trawl for impact evidence, to help shape narratives, and even to review or score outputs. Others are experimenting with bespoke tools or home-grown systems designed to streamline their internal processes.
This kind of activity is usually driven by good intentions. Teams are trying to cope with rising workloads and the increased complexity that comes with each REF cycle. But when different institutions use different tools in different ways, the result is not greater clarity. It is a patchwork of inconsistent practices and a risk that those involved do not clearly understand the role GenAI has played.
The report notes that most universities still lack formal guidance and that internal policy discussions are only just beginning. In fact, practice has moved so far ahead of governance that many colleagues are unaware of how much GenAI is already embedded in their own institution’s REF preparation, or for professional services, how much GenAI is already being used by their researchers.
The sector digital divide
This is where the sector can work together, with support from Jisc and others, to help narrow the divide that exists. The survey results tell us that many academics are deeply sceptical of GenAI in almost every part of the REF. Strong disagreement is common and, in some areas, reaches seventy per cent or more. Only a small minority sees value in GenAI for developing impact case studies.
In contrast, interviews with senior leaders reveal a growing sense that institutions cannot afford to ignore this technology. Several Pro Vice Chancellors told us that GenAI is here to stay and that the sector has a responsibility to work out how to use it safely and responsibly.
This tension is familiar to Jisc. GenAI literacy is uneven, as is confidence, and even general digital capability. Our role is to help universities navigate that unevenness. In learning and teaching, this need is well understood, with our AI literacy programme for teaching staff well established. The REF AI findings make clear that similar support will be needed for research staff.
Why national action matters
If we leave GenAI use entirely to local experimentation, we will widen the digital divide between those who can invest in bespoke tools and those who cannot. The extent to which institutions can benefit from GenAI is tightly bound to their resources and existing expertise. A national research assessment exercise cannot afford to leave that unaddressed.
We also need to address research integrity, and that should be the foundation for anything we do next. If the sector wants a safe and fair path forward, then transparency must come first. That is why Recommendation 1 matters. The report suggests universities should consider steps such as:
define where GenAI can and cannot be used
require disclosure of GenAI involvement in REF related work
embed these decisions into their broader research integrity and ethics frameworks
As the report notes that current thinking about GenAI rarely connects with responsible research assessment initiatives such as DORA or CoARA, that gap has to close.
Creating the conditions for innovation
These steps do not limit innovation; they make innovation possible in a responsible way. At Jisc we already hear from institutions looking for advice on secure, trustworthy GenAI environments. They want support that will enable experimentation without compromising data protection, confidentiality or research ethics. They want clarity on how to balance efficiency gains with academic oversight. And they want to avoid replicating the mistakes of early digital adoption, where local solutions grew faster than shared standards.
The REF AI report gives the sector the evidence it needs to move from informal practice to a clear, managed approach.
The next REF will arrive at a time of major financial strain and major technological change. GenAI can help reduce burden and improve consistency, but only if it is used transparently and with a shared commitment to integrity. With the right safeguards, GenAI could support fairness in the assessment of UK research.
From Jisc’s perspective, this is the moment to work together. Universities need policies. Panels need guidance. And the sector will need shared infrastructure that levels the field rather than widening existing gaps.
Leaders of faith-based colleges and universities have spoken out on a slew of political issues in recent months, sometimes standing alongside secular universities and at other times differentiating themselves and defending their unique standing and missions.
The Council for Christian Colleges and Universities and the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities signed on to an October statement from the American Council on Education opposing the administration’s higher education compact, for example. Over the summer, CCCU also came out with a statement on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that echoed those of secular associations and institutions, expressing concern that “it ultimately falls short in supporting student access and success.”
ACE’s Commission on Faith-Based Colleges and Universities was among the higher ed groups that lobbied hard against Pell Grant cuts, later dropped from the bill. At the same time, the University of Notre Dame and other faith-based institutions fought for an exemption for religious institutions from the higher education endowment tax, ultimately left out of the legislation’s final version.
Like their secular peers, faith-based colleges and universities have been buffeted by the rapid-fire policy changes roiling higher ed this year. Some leaders of religious colleges say their institutions are enjoying renewed support that they hope sets a precedent for future policymakers across party lines. At the same time, some advocates fear religious colleges—and their missions—are suffering collateral damage in Trump’s war against highly selective universities, and they’re making careful decisions about when and how to speak out.
“I knew change would be coming,” said David Hoag, president of CCCU, “but I never expected the pace to be this fast.”
Raising Concerns
Under any administration, CCCU’s job is to “make it possible for our institutions to achieve their missions,” Hoag said. But some recent policy changes pose an obstacle to that.
Christian colleges—which tend to be small, enrolling about 2,500 students on average—can’t afford to join Trump’s proposed compact for higher ed, he said. He believes some of the compact’s demands, such as freezing tuition for five years, are a tall order with campus expenses on the rise. He also opposes the compact’s standardized test mandate when so many Christian colleges offer broad access, and he’s concerned by the possibility that government could have some control over curriculum, though he said the compact was unclear on that score.
“On the curriculum side, most of our institutions are conservative. We have a solid Christian mission,” Hoag said. “I’m fine with civics being a part of some of the work that we do, but it, to me, starts to … step over academic freedom.”
Christian colleges are also balking at the new $100,000 fee for H-1B visas, which these institutions use to bring in visiting professors from other countries.
“Our institutions can’t afford anything like that,” Hoag said. Such a fee might be more easily affordable for tech or other industries that use H-1B visas to hire foreign employees, he said, “but for nonprofit colleges and Christian colleges, that’s a big financial burden.”
He’s also alarmed by some of the provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, including the requirement that programs prove students will earn more than high school graduates in order to access federal loans. Hoag worries that won’t bode well for institutions where a significant portion of students go into ministry, social work or other public service jobs that don’t necessarily pay high wages. He said the end of the Grad PLUS program is also poised to hurt Christian colleges; graduate students borrowed about $460 million annually to attend CCCU institutions, he said. Now he expects many will struggle to pay. Caps on loans for professional school students are also going to affect those earning master’s degrees in divinity.
Donna Carroll, president of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, said Catholic institutions are hardly “immune” to the challenges rocking the rest of higher ed. She said her nonpartisan organization has decided to speak up on a particular set of policy issues, including financial aid and supports for low-income students, autonomy for faith-based institutions, and immigration policy and access for international students. For example, the association signed on to a statement by U.S. bishops condemning “indiscriminate mass deportation” as an “affront to God-given human dignity.”
“There are some issues and situations where there is consensus and a unity across Catholic institutions,” Carroll said. “There are other situations where different institutions have different perspectives.”
In a similar vein, Clark G. Gilbert, commissioner of the church educational system for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and chair of the Commission on Faith-Based Colleges and Universities, said members of his coalition had mixed views on parts of the bill involving federal loans—he’d like to see colleges drop their prices—but they collectively pushed hard against proposed cuts to Pell Grants, which didn’t make it into the legislation.
“We’re concerned about first-generation and low-income students. That’s not a partisan issue,” Gilbert said.
‘Not Like Some of These Ivies’
A mounting frustration for some faith-based institution leaders is the blowback their campuses face from Trump administration policies targeting expensive, highly selective private universities, even though they view their missions as distinct.
Hoag pointed out that, while some Christian colleges are pricier, the average tuition costs about $30,600 per year, not including room and board, and the average tuition discount rate is about 52 percent.
“Christian schools are very affordable, and we’re not like some of these Ivies that have tuition from $80,000 to $100,000 a year,” Hoag said. Yet “I do feel that they’re … putting everybody in the same category.”
Some faith-based institutions, led by the University of Notre Dame, sought to distinguish themselves from other higher ed institutions when they pushed for a religious exemption from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s endowment tax.
Gilbert said Brigham Young University joined that effort because university leaders viewed the situation as a religious freedom issue.
“We feel like there are public goods of faith-based schools that are often ignored,” such as research from faith-based perspectives, he said. “Without the internal funding at these schools, it wouldn’t happen. We feel like there is a religious liberty issue at stake there.”
“I’m sure secular schools would feel their unique missions need that protection, too—that’s not my job to write and defend that,” he added.
Gilbert said he feels a particular need to advocate on behalf of religious colleges, compared to higher ed as a whole, because he believes faith-based institutions are too often maligned. He said such institutions are doing research on topics ignored by their secular counterparts—like how family structures affect intergenerational poverty or how faith and religious community resources affect health outcomes—but these projects struggle to get federal funding or recognition from secular peers. He also stressed that these institutions provide a campus climate religious students can’t find elsewhere.
“Many Jewish students do not feel safe at Columbia and at Harvard and at UCLA. Many LDS students do not feel welcome in certain programs,” he said. “Faith-based schools do feel like they need to preserve their rights.” He emphasized that doesn’t mean he wants to see any university lose out on cancer research funding, for example, but “faith-based scholars are doing things that no one else is doing, and why isn’t that getting the attention, the funding and the support, regardless of who the administration is?”
Despite their policy disagreements, some leaders of faith-based institutions believe the Trump administration is offering them a warmer reception than they’ve perhaps received in the past. The president issued an executive order in February founding a task force on eradicating “anti-Christian bias” within government. In May, Trump’s Education Department also rescinded a $37.7 million fine levied by the Biden administration on Grand Canyon University, a private Christian institution, for allegedly misleading doctoral students about its cost. And the Trump administration recently partnered with Hillsdale College, a conservative Christian campus in Michigan, on a series of videos for the country’s 250th anniversary. The president of Yeshiva University, Rabbi Ari Berman, gave the benediction at Trump’s inauguration.
Amid renewed outreach to faith-based institutions under Trump, Gilbert said he’s trying to walk a fine line, advocating for more attention and resources for faith-based institutions’ research but doing so in a way that remains apolitical.
“We don’t care about party politics. We care about the American family. We care about alleviating poverty,” he said. “We’re going to continue to help shine a light on the contributions these schools make in the current climate, but not so overboard that when things may change, and they will, that we can’t make the same arguments using the same principles with a different administration.”
The Beyond Transfer Policy Advisory Board is thinking creatively about financial and reputational incentives to improve transfer and learning mobility. In this article, two of the PAB’s members—Sharon Morrissey and Ron Anderson—who are both seasoned, system-level leaders, share their reflections on what is needed next to accelerate success in transfer and learning mobility.
During the webcast, participants were polled on the following question: “To what extent do you agree that new financial incentives or budgeting models could help institutions to prioritize improving transfer student outcomes?” The audience’s response was positive, with 85 percent agreeing at least somewhat. However, we see some divisions within the data, with 32 percent saying they “strongly agree” and 53 percent saying they “somewhat agree.”
While that data might feel a bit hard to make sense of, it rings true to us. Between us we bring over seven decades of experience as faculty, institutional administrators and system office leaders across three states, Minnesota, North Carolina and Virginia. That experience has taught us that improving credit transfer and expanding learning mobility are some of the most complex challenges facing higher education.
Why is this? For one, improving recognition of learning and credit transfer requires higher education institutions to contend with a wide range of prior learning experiences, including traditional college coursework, high school dual-enrollment courses, career and technical education, work-based learning, military service, industry certification, and more. This implies the participation of numerous learning providers, such as institutions of higher education, high schools, employers and the military. And it involves multiple decision-makers, such as students who choose transfer pathways, faculty who determine what learning to recognize and how to apply that learning to program requirements, enrollment managers who wish to recruit transfer students, registrars who process transcripts, deans and provosts who oversee academic standards, and presidents who are held accountable by policymakers for serving transfer students. In short, there is complexity at every step of the process.
That complexity points to the fact that—as the mixed results of that poll show—if we are going to make true progress on transfer and learning mobility, we must find solutions that appeal to the priorities of multiple decision-makers. As we think about incentives, for example, the incentives that would influence the behavior of a faculty member are not the same as the incentives that would influence the behavior of an administrator. Those responsible for revenue may be more swayed by a policy that would augment an institution’s state appropriation for increased enrollment and graduation of transfer students, while those responsible for curriculum may be more inclined to accept and apply transfer credit to a degree program based on their assessment of how the prior learning aligns to the learning outcomes of their own local courses.
Another key theme of the webcast—and, let’s be honest, nearly every discussion held these days about transfer—was that we must zero in on the credential applicability of prior learning. Past reform efforts have advanced incredible work such as understanding the student experience, increasing transfer student belonging, strengthening advising and creating infrastructure for efforts such as credit for prior learning. All that work is critical and must continue. But we must also double down on how to advance credential applicability of courses and other forms of prior learning. We are not helping transfer students meet their educational goals if we fail to apply their prior learning to program requirements.
Finally, a third theme elevated in the webcast was about shifting culture and mindsets. Achieving increased credential applicability will require a shift away from the current culture that interrogates every aspect of a course or other prior learning experience to find a course-to-course equivalency. Does anyone really believe that a student cannot be successful in a subsequent course, or in the workforce, if they happen to read a different textbook? As the Council of Regional Accrediting Commissions recently elevated, the practice of interrogating the minutiae of courses and other learning experiences should, instead, focus at a higher level, on questions such as:
Does the sum of a student’s learning provide an appropriate foundation to set them up for continued academic success?
Can a student be successful in subsequent learning experiences, with appropriate just-in-time support? How can the institution provide that support?
What data do we have that a student will not be successful in a subsequent course?
Based on our experience working with institutions and systems, we share here three state policy ideas that attend to these themes by 1) appealing to the priorities of multiple decision-makers, in this case both faculty and administrators; 2) zeroing in on credential applicability of prior learning; and 3) nudging broader cultural and mindset shifts.
The first idea is for policymakers to explicitly include credit transfer and applicability within the design of state funding models by pinning rewards to credential applicability of groups of many courses. Right now, some—but not all—states have funding formulas that focus attention on transfer students’ outcomes. Those that do often include metrics such as the rate of students who transfer and bachelor’s degree completion for those who enter as a transfer student.
On their own, these goalposts are too broad and have not yet produced the level of change needed. How can states improve this approach? We think one approach might be for states to collaborate with institutions to build various program-aligned credit thresholds and then reward institutions for applying that credit to degree requirements, such as:
Awarding and applying 15 program-aligned credits: The equivalent of what many refer to as a meta-major, designed to introduce students to a broad program area (e.g., allied health).
Awarding and applying 30 program-aligned credits: The equivalent of roughly the first year of college, often represented by a general education transfer core that is customized to include program-aligned courses.
Awarding and applying 60 program-aligned credits: The equivalent of a typical associate degree—but again, this must be a program-aligned associate degree.
The goal here is for receiving institutions to not pull these credit blocks apart and pick and choose which credits apply. If students have met a threshold and their preparation is program-aligned, they should be advanced toward program completion for all of those credits. The groups of courses students have completed add to more than the sum of their parts. Students are journeying through a learning experience, with a variety of learning outcomes, that when looked at holistically are offering strong preparation for not just subsequent courses, but life and work. The mindset shift here is: Students do not need to have met every single learning outcome addressed in the receiving institution courses to be successful. They need to be prepared enough to be successful in subsequent courses, learning experiences and the workforce.
Second, we encourage state policymakers to couple this policy change with demonstration projects that engage faculty in pedagogy, curriculum design and research. As receiving institutions accept and apply these groups of courses, what just-in-time supports should receiving institutions offer to students to ensure their success after transfer? How are students performing on a number of measures: in subsequent courses, for graduation and in the workforce? Which curricular design assumptions no longer hold? Where might classroom approaches be strengthened and evolved to reflect shifting needs of learners?
Finally, all the findings of this work should be elevated through state recognition awards (ideally coupled with some funding) that promote the visibility and reputation of colleges and universities that are embracing all high-quality learning and moving learners toward credential completion.
Through the Beyond Transfer Policy Advisory Board, we’ll continue to push against the status quo to imagine new possibilities for institutions and learners. Connect with us on Instagram (@beyondtransfer) to stay informed on the board’s latest policy insights and ideas, and visit our website to access prior research reports related to transfer, institutional finance and financial aid, including:
Beyond Transfer Policy Advisory Board. (2023). Affordability Disconnects: Understanding Student Affordability in the Transfer and Credit Mobility Era. See paper with visuals and blog.
Beyond Transfer Policy Advisory Board. (2023). Unpacking Financial Disincentives: Why and How they Stymie Degree-Applicable Credit Mobility and Equitable Transfer Outcomes. See paper with visuals and blog.
Every year on Veterans Day, we pause to honor those who have served our country—but our gratitude must extend beyond a single day of reflection. One of the most powerful ways to repay veterans’ service is through education, a goal long supported by the general public and Republican and Democratic administrations alike. Student veterans bring leadership, discipline and unique experiences to college campuses; their postsecondary success strengthens both our communities and economies.
Yet despite their proven academic potential and deep motivation to earn a degree, too many veterans face unnecessary barriers to completing college. At Ithaka S+R, we’ve reported on the value of enrolling and supporting student veterans and the unique challenges these students face in getting to and through higher education, for several years running. From underresourced institutions to opaque transfer processes and predatory recruitment practices, these obstacles result in lower bachelor’s degree attainment among veterans compared to their civilian peers.
Right now, policy and appropriations decisions (including the current government shutdown) could undermine the progress the country has made in providing educational opportunities for our veterans. As we celebrate Veterans Day, it’s time for higher education leaders and policymakers to renew their commitment to supporting those who’ve served. Here are three developing situations that we’re monitoring for their potential impact on student veterans.
Cuts to Veterans Upward Bound
Veterans Upward Bound is a federally funded TRIO program focused on precollege, college transition and college success support for veterans. Started in 1972, the program now supports more than 8,000 veterans looking to enroll in or return to college by providing academic instruction, tutoring and counseling. There are 60-plus programs nationally, run by individual colleges and universities. The programs have proven highly effective: Participants are 42 percent more likely than their peers to earn a bachelor’s degree within six years.
There is significant uncertainty about whether the federal government will sustain the current and future funding for these Veterans Upward Bound programs. The federal government delayed payment for the majority of TRIO programs this fall, including all Veterans Upward Bound programs. The funding delay came on the heels of proposals to decrease, or even eliminate completely, TRIO programs in next year’s federal budget. The Department of Education got a head start this year, canceling many thousands of dollars in already-allocated funding for TRIO programs, including for VUB programs, in mid-September. Although some of that funding has since been restored, the uncertainty leaves many programs struggling to plan for the year ahead.
VA Staffing Cuts and GI Bill Processing Times
Enrolled student veterans rely on the federal government for the processing of their GI Bill funds. The combination of staffing cuts at the Department of Veterans Affairs and the recent federal government shutdown has created delays, confusion and, ultimately, financial stress for student veterans.
This summer, student veterans and campus advisers reported that benefit eligibility determinations and payments for the GI Bill took three times longer than previously because of understaffing and increased administrative errors. This meant that housing and textbook payments were delayed, which led to some student veterans missing the start of classes (and, in more severe cases, dropping or stopping out).
The situation has worsened since the federal government shut down on Oct. 1. Although education benefits themselves are primarily funded through advance appropriations and thus can continue to be paid out, critical support services have ceased operation during the shutdown. The VA’s GI Bill phone hotline, which many rely on for questions about eligibility, payments and school certification, is closed. Regional VA offices, which normally handle in-person assistance, are also closed. Not only do these closures create challenges in the current moment, but resulting processing delays will result in a backlog even after the government reopens.
For student veterans on fixed schedules, with tight budgets and in transitional life phases, the time and energy to deal with unsettled paperwork add up to real risks for academic progress and financial stability.
Measuring Student Veteran Success
The uncertainty of federal support for student veterans comes at a time when there is shrinking programmatic and rhetorical support for students that higher education has historically struggled to welcome. Veterans are increasingly more likely to belong to other underrepresented groups, such as racial minorities and adult learners, so the challenges they face in accessing and affording higher education may be multiplied.
The states, systems and institutions interested in continuing to serve student veterans are also facing immense challenges as they confront federal policy changes that have downstream financial impacts, such as changes to graduate student loans and the decline in international student enrollment. While these challenges make it even more imperative for institutions to enroll a wider range of students, including student veterans, there is simultaneously increased difficulty in doing so.
Investing in veteran-specific admissions strategies and academic advising, providing efficient credit transfer mechanisms, and tracking postcollege outcomes are initiatives that can help boost student veteran success. The full scope of that success, however, remains elusive, as the data landscape for student veterans remains fragmented and incomplete. Alongside institutional efforts to ensure success, regional and national efforts are needed to more fully understand how many new veterans could benefit from enrolling in higher education each year and in what degree programs they are most interested. To truly understand the scope of the impact of the federal budget and staffing cuts and how other parts of higher education can help fill that breach and prioritize veterans’ enrollment, it is essential to know more about the size and scope of the potential student veteran population we are looking to serve.
Conclusion
As federal uncertainty grows, from cuts to Veterans Upward Bound programs to delays in GI Bill processing, and the shutdown drags on, student veterans risk being left behind just when they need institutional support most. At the same time, colleges face shrinking budgets and shifting demographics that make it harder to serve those who’ve already given so much.
But these challenges also present an opportunity for stakeholders throughout higher education to refocus on veterans. By investing in veteran-specific recruitment, advising and data collection efforts, institutions, states and veteran-serving organizations can open doors to a new generation of leaders ready to contribute to their campuses and communities.
The promise of higher education for veterans should not only depend on bureaucratic stability or federal budget cycles; it requires a collective effort from within and beyond the field of higher education. This Veterans Day and every day after, let’s recommit to ensuring that those who served our nation have every chance to succeed in the classroom and beyond.
Emily Schwartz is a principal of bachelor’s attainment at the nonprofit Ithaka S+R, which conducts research and offers strategic advice on student access and success, among other topics related to higher education and research. Michael Fried is a senior researcher and Daniel Braun is senior development and operations specialist, both at Ithaka S+R.
Under the current administration, we have witnessed a dangerous cascade of immigration policies and actions. These developments are impacting our students, employees, campuses and communities in real time, imperiling the future of our colleges and universities.
It’s time for us in higher education to pull the fire alarm. Pulling the fire alarm does not mean panic. This is a call to respond, mobilize and act.
Why Collective Action Is Urgent Now
In recent months, the short- and long-term damage of the administration’s immigration actions has come into sharper focus, requiring significant action.
Prospective international student confidence in pursuing their studies in the U.S. has declined dramatically as a result of the administration’s actions. New international student enrollments are already down more than 10 percent this fall for many institutions—and considerably more for some—with analysts projecting more intense declines in future years.
The administration is actively taking away in-state tuition and financial aid access for undocumented students in a growing number of states and threatening specific institutions because of their support for undocumented students.
Reports of immigration enforcement on and around campuses are increasing, with more institutions grappling with how to respond to fear and anxiety in their communities and how to support students, family members and employees who are caught up in mass enforcement actions.
Humanitarian parolees and temporary protected status holders are losing their protections and work authorization, making them vulnerable targets for deportation.
Campuses are already feeling the impact of these developments—but the economic consequences and implications for U.S. productivity and innovation are far broader. A new National Foundation for American Policy study estimates that the current administration’s immigration policies targeting undocumented, lawfully immigrant and international populations would reduce the number of workers in the U.S. by 6.8 million by 2028, and 15.7 million by 2035, lowering the annual rate of economic growth by nearly one-third.
A recent paper on “brain freeze” projects that the U.S. will experience significant adverse economic and innovation impacts due to the declines in international students and researchers. The loss of any portion of the immigrant-origin and international students on our campuses, who together now make up close to 40 percent of all students in higher education, would be devastating for many institutions, local economies and states across the country.
What Can We Do Together?
Since January, colleges and universities have been responding to policies that adversely impact immigrant, international, refugee and other noncitizen campus members. At the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, we have collaborated with campuses to analyze emerging policies and develop effective responses, producing resources on immigration enforcement on campus, registration requirements for noncitizens and issues related to international students, as well as guidance on funding and tuition equity policies to support Dreamers and on ways to support students and other campus members who may be detained or deported.
We now need to take it to the next level. Colleges, universities and the associations that represent them need to coordinate consistently to mobilize in response to the immigration-related threats impacting our campuses.
Support Litigation
Higher education groups, associations and institutions are engaging in litigation on many fronts. While it might seem overwhelming to challenge this administration’s dubious—and, as many legal experts and courts have concluded, unlawful—immigration policy actions, we need to connect the dots and explain the harm to judges who have the power to halt implementation and call out the administration for its constitutional violations.
Public institutions in states with Democratic attorneys general can help to make the case to their AGs about the importance of joining these efforts. Some ways higher education institutions can support litigation include:
Serving as a named plaintiff. While associations representing colleges and universities, including the Presidents’ Alliance, the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in Massachusetts, and the Association of American Universities, have shown that they are ready to stand as named plaintiffs in legal challenges related to immigration, we will need more associations and institutions ready to support such litigation. Litigation is one way to interrupt intersecting policy actions that amplify the myriad threats facing immigrant and international communities and establish a record of opposition to potentially unlawful action.
Submitting a declaration. Institutions can play a vital role when they submit declarations to support legal challenges. These fact-based documents describe the concrete harms an institution is experiencing and provide crucial evidence that strengthens the overall case.
Joining an amicus brief. When campuses join amicus briefs, they demonstrate coordination and solidarity within the higher education sector. For example, last spring, when the American Association of University Professors challenged the administration’s unlawful visa revocations alleging an ideological deportation policy, 86 institutions and organizations joined the Presidents’ Alliance on an amicus brief that highlighted the importance of protecting international and noncitizen students’ and scholars’ freedom of speech. And, this week, 37 institutions and organizations joined us in an amicus brief that demonstrated the importance of tuition-equity policies for Dreamers.
Speak Out
Institutions and associations need to work more closely together to support one another and to communicate the damage of harmful immigration policies. During this administration, public and private institutions are more measured and constrained—by boards, state policies and structures and campus politics—in what they say and do publicly. We know that fear of retribution and the potential collateral damage to other campus constituencies informs decision-making. Many institutional leaders with whom I speak are seeking to do what is strategically effective and are weighing multiple priorities and competing commitments.
What we know now is that not speaking out does not preclude an institution from becoming a target, and many campus constituencies are already being harmed. So, the strategic calculus is changing, and there may be more to be gained in speaking out. Here are some effective ways to speak out:
Affirming one for all, all for one. University of Nevada, Reno, president Brian Sandoval, a former Republican governor of Nevada, swiftly responded to the Department of Justice’s attacks on UNR’s support for undocumented students, stating clearly that UNR’s services were lawful and that supporting all students’ success is core to the higher education mission. The Presidents’ Alliance and TheDream.US issued public statements of support, reaffirming the importance of higher education supporting Dreamers and the success of all students. When individual institutions speak out, they often affirm our common mission, and we, in turn, can reaffirm theirs.
Supporting associational statements. Associations are playing an important role in convening institutional leaders and leading on statements. We must continue to lean on each other and on associations. Statements organized by the American Association of Colleges and Universities and the American Council on Education on the proposed compact for higher education make our sector’s stances clear. Institutions and associations that can join such statements should continue to do so.
Educating and engaging. Institutional leaders and board members can spread accurate, positive messages about immigrant and international students, shifting the narrative through commentaries such as Arizona State University president Michael Crow’s op-ed on the importance of international students.
Join in Coalition Building
For collective action to work, we need to build out dedicated spaces for higher education institutions to come together and coordinate. This call to action does not mitigate the need and usefulness for the private conversations that institutional leaders have on their campuses, in their states, on the Hill and with the current administration. While a good number of us may need to stay in more quiet spaces, now is also the time when each of us needs to consider what more we can do together.
Join us in coalition-building. Building and hosting immigration-specific coordinating groups and strategy sessions has been a focus for us at the Presidents’ Alliance. It has proven productive for developing relationships with other sectors and building buy-in across regional contexts. We invite you to join us in our work to build common ground across the political spectrum and to advocate for forward-looking, common sense immigration reform.
Strengthen your coordination. Institutions must prepare to navigate evolving policies. Strengthening coordination will help campuses understand new developments quickly while avoiding pre-emptive or overcompliance. It will help institutions know what they can do when they need to move swiftly to respond to immigration enforcement or policy actions that may have immediate consequences.
When we sound the alarm, we call others to take action alongside us. The time for urgent response is here. Together, higher education can take coordinated steps to defend our institutions and community members.
Miriam Feldblum is the co-founder, president and CEO of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration.
