Credentialed media at the University of Colorado are once again free to share simulations of game footage. The university has removed a provision from its media policy that barred outlets from sharing “[s]imulated video or slideshows mimicking game action.”
As FIRE wrote in our letter to CU, the policy impermissibly restrained journalists from choosing to use “‘simulated game action’ or a slideshow to display game data.” That kind of choice is exactly the sort of editorial decision the First Amendment requires be left to journalists, not the government.
Conditioning credentials on this unconstitutional requirement restricted the First Amendment freedoms of journalists miles away from the field, court, or swimming pool. While universities can sell exclusive broadcasting rights to their sporting events, they can’t dictate how media members report on what happened in an athletic competition..
Our letter called on CU to repeal the policy. Thankfully, it did.
This welcome change comes as a direct result of that letter. In his reply, Athletic Director Rick George acknowledged that the university’s policy was far broader than administrators had first realized. He also affirmed CU’s strong commitment to free expression and committed to repealing the policy, which went well beyond the university’s obligations as a member of the Big 12 Conference and signatory to the conference’s media rights deal.
CU’s response here is exactly what universities should do when their policies fall short of their First Amendment obligations: acknowledge the problem, commit to protecting expression, and promptly fix the issue. And it’s surely part of the reason the university is ranked fifth in FIRE’s College Free Speech Rankings, with a majority of students saying CU is at least somewhat clear that the administration protects free speech on campus.
FIRE’s Student Press Freedom Initiative is pleased to see CU put the free press over profits. Other universities should take a page from the Buffaloes’ book.
FIRE defends the rights of students and faculty members — no matter their views — at public and private universities and colleges in the United States. If you are a student or a faculty member facing investigation or punishment for your speech, submit your case to FIRE today. If you’re a college journalist facing censorship or a media law question, call the Student Press Freedom Initiative 24-hour hotline at 717-734-SPFI (7734). If you’re faculty member at a public college or university, call the Faculty Legal Defense Fund 24-hour hotline at 254-500-FLDF (3533).
One year after I reported on New York City parents’ reactions to a proposed ban on cellphones in the classroom, students and teachers have returned to schools with that ban in place.
When I asked families on my 4,000-plus-member NYC School Secrets mailing list how they felt about the new restriction, I received answers ranging from enthusiasm to concern.
“Phones and smartwatches in classrooms and school hallways are more than just a distraction — they’re a barrier to learning, focus and social development,” according to Manhattan’s Arwynn H.J.
“Bring on the ban,” cheered Bronx parent and teacher Jackie Marashlian. “My high school students were ready to air-scroll me toward the ceiling with their fingers, so bored with whatever it was I was trying to impart to them. One day we had a WiFi glitch and I saw my students’ beautiful eyes for the very first time. Bring kids back to face-to-face interaction and socializing during lunch breaks.”
“As a middle school teacher in the Bronx and parent of an eighth grader, I think the cellphone ban is fantastic,” agreed Debra. “While my son is ‘devastated’ he can’t have his phone, it scares me that he’s said he doesn’t know what to do at lunch/recess without a phone. Kids have become so reliant on technology, even when they are with their peers, that often they are not really WITH their peers; they are all just staring at their phones. I hope the cellphone ban leads more students to be both physically and mentally present.”
For mom Elaine Daly, the phone ban affects her more than her special-needs daughter. “My child is 11 and knows she is not to use the phone in school. My parental controls blocks, locks and limits access. But I need her phone to be on so I can also track her, since the NYCSchools bus app always says: Driver offline.”
Jen C., who reported the ban has been going well with her child in elementary school, sees a bigger issue for her high school-age son. “He has homework online and likes to get started during his free periods. However, he’s not allowed to use his laptop, and there are not enough school issued laptops. I feel that teachers should give off-line work, or the school needs to give access to laptops.”
Parents of older students were the ones most likely to be against the blanket edict.
“You can’t have the same policy for kids 6 years old and for 17 years old,” mom Pilar Ruiz Cobo raged. “This policy is crazy for seniors. Yesterday, my daughter had her first college adviser class, and only five kids could work because the rest didn’t remember their passwords to Naviance and the Common App. The verification code was sent only to their phones. Children who don’t study, don’t study with and without phones, now the children who actually work have to work double at home.”
A Queens mom pinpointed another problem. “Many high school students leave the premises for lunch, and my son’s school is one of those. He said they’re not allowed to take their phones. Children need to use phones outside of school for various reasons; to use phone pay, to contact their parents for lunch money or any updates, etc…”
The policy varies from school to school. At some, students are allowed to request their phones back when temporarily leaving the premises. However, the larger the school, the less likely it is to have enough staff to handle such exchanges.
“An interesting aspect of this policy is that although it was presented as a smartphone ban, it’s actually much more expansive, including tablets and laptops,” pointed out dad Adam C. “This presents a challenge for high school students who rely on laptops for receiving, completing and submitting assignments through Google Classroom.”
“They say parents have to provide their own laptop pouch (there are none similar to Yonder), and they can’t store laptops in backpacks,” confirmed Queens mom Y.N. “My son has afterschool sports activities and likes to do his homework on his laptop in between. I think he’ll have to take it with him and hope they don’t confiscate.”
“While I’m not opposed to keeping students off platforms like Snapchat during school hours,” Adam continued, “They should be able to connect a laptop to a school-managed Wi-Fi network for school-related purposes, and the current policy doesn’t provide the schools with much leeway around this.”
But Y.N. doesn’t believe that’s accurate. “I already voiced my concern to the Student Leadership Team (SLT). At the Panel for Education Policy, they said these rules are fluid. Because the regulations came after the SLTs were done for the year, the chancellor said they should be able to change them. She said a plan had to be made before Day One, but it doesn’t mean that adjustments can’t be made at the school level. ‘Tinkering’ was the word they kept using.”
If that’s the case, perhaps NYC can pull back from its traditional one-size-fits-all approach and allow individual schools to “tinker” and set limitations based on the needs and feedback of their community, adjusting policy based on grade level, academic requirements and a multitude of other factors.
With the clutch of traditional higher education flashpoints accounted for – A level and SQA results days, and a clearing season reported to be particularly fraught in some quarters – the summer is drawing to a close, and a new academic year is upon us.
Eighteen year olds are set to attend universities in record numbers, up 5 per cent year on year and up 27 per cent since 2016. This is unquestionably a great thing. However, it masks a troublingly stubborn decline in mature students numbers.
In recent years, the number of these students – those aged 21 and over (or 25 and over for postgraduate study) – entering UK universities has been falling at an alarming rate, down by 26 per cent since 2016 according to UCAS. This decline may sound like a niche concern, but it carries big implications for the wider economy, for skills shortages, and for the prospects of people who want to reskill later in life.
As the government prepares to roll out the Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE), there’s an urgent opportunity to rethink how the sector and society support adult learners and to ensure that lifelong education becomes a central pillar of our skills system.
The current picture
While the signs from clearing so far offer some encouragement, due perhaps to a sluggish economy, the data remains stark. Over the past decade or more, the number of mature students entering higher education has steadily declined, down 43 per cent since 2012.
The causes are multifaceted, but a shift began with the introduction of higher fees in 2012 and has persisted – it is well established that mature students tend to be more debt-averse, so this coupled with the rising cost of living and the upfront financial commitment of a degree will no doubt put off many.
Others may well be put off by a lack of flexibility. While real strides have been made in this area, particularly at modern universities, the structures of funding and regulation mean a lot of courses are still designed for school-leavers with the time and freedom to study full-time. Family responsibilities, limited employer support for training and the still-dominant perception that universities are designed for 18-year-olds will also play a role.
The pandemic briefly nudged some adults back into learning, but the overall trend remains downward. Without targeted action, these numbers are unlikely to recover on their own.
A price to pay
Why does this matter beyond the university sector? Because a thriving economy depends on people being able to learn, retrain, and adapt throughout their lives. Mature students often bring real-world experience into classrooms and tend to choose courses that fill urgent skills shortages – in health and social care, teaching, engineering, IT, and other high-demand sectors.
When these pathways dry up, industries suffer. Skills gaps are prevalent across key sectors and have been estimated by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation to cost the economy almost £40bn per year. Without a pipeline of retrained workers, employers struggle to fill gaps, productivity growth stalls, and regional economies miss opportunities to regenerate.
It’s also an issue of social mobility. For people whose school results closed off higher education the first time around, mature study offers a second chance to change careers, boost their earnings, and improve their families’ prospects. If that route disappears, inequality widens – and our economy pays the price.
A new hope?
The LLE, due to launch in 2026, aims to reshape post-18 education in England by enabling a move away from the traditional three- or four-year degree as the default model. Instead, individuals will be able to draw on a single pot of funding – equivalent to four years of study, or around £38,000 – and use it flexibly over their lifetimes, taking courses in smaller, more targeted chunks.
In principle, this modular approach could open the door for adults with work and family commitments, allowing them to pursue short courses when needed and return later for further study without losing access to funding. By making learning more flexible, affordable, and tied to labour market needs, the LLE is pitched as a way to lower barriers that currently deter many mature learners, particularly in an economy being reshaped by AI, automation, and the green transition.
Yet the promise of the scheme is far from guaranteed. The rollout is proving complex, with uncertainties over how funding will be administered, whether universities and colleges will be equipped to redesign courses in modular formats, and how easily learners will be able to navigate the system. Awareness is another challenge: adults with established careers and busy lives may not know the scheme exists, or may find the process of accessing funding too bureaucratic to be worth the effort. Employers, meanwhile, will need to support staff in using the entitlement – something that cannot be assumed.
There are also cultural and practical reasons to doubt whether large numbers of mature learners will take up the LLE. Adults may be reluctant to re-enter formal education, particularly if they are anxious about returning to study, lack confidence with digital learning, or doubt the value of small qualifications in the job market. Others may weigh the potential benefits against the costs – not only financial, but also in time and disruption to family or work responsibilities – and decide against it.
In short, while the LLE represents a bold attempt to modernise lifelong education, its success will depend on whether the system can overcome significant implementation hurdles and whether mature learners themselves see it as accessible, relevant, and worthwhile.
The role of modern universities
Universities are at the heart of this challenge. They too cannot rest on their laurels and must continue to consider how they design, market, and deliver their courses if they are to serve lifelong learners as effectively as they serve 18-year-olds fresh from colleges. Modern universities, which traditionally teach the majority of mature undergraduates, must continue to lead this agenda from the front.
Partnerships with local employers, another area in which modern universities lead, are key. By aligning courses with regional economic needs – for example, creating pathways into green technologies, health and care, or digital sectors – universities can help ensure that adults return to education with a clear line of sight to better jobs.
But a cultural shift is just as important. Universities need to be hubs for lifelong learning, not just finishing schools for young adults, and the government has significant work to do in getting the word out to the general public that the opportunity to study or re-train is there to be taken.
The decline in mature students is more than a higher education story. It’s a warning sign for our economy and for our ability to adapt to change. The LLE offers a chance to reverse the trend – but only if universities, employers, and policymakers work together to make lifelong learning a reality.
In a fast-changing world, education cannot stop at 21. The people of Britain need a system that allows people to keep learning, keep adapting, and keep contributing to the economy throughout their lives.
International students are placing getting a quality education over policy developments – with the UK keeping its spot as the preferred desitnation for 80% of nearly 1,000 pathway students surveyed by NCUK.
A new report covering the survey’s findings analyses data from 921 students across 88 countries studying an international foundation year or Master’s preparatino programs, looking at their motivations for studying in top destinations, as well as other preferences.
It found that Australia was the second most popular choice, with 4% of students surveyed marking it as their preference, followed by Canada, the US, New Zealand and Ireland at 3%. Meanwhile, the most coveted programs are business and computer science, as the preferred subjects for just under a third (31%) of respondents.
Students’ continued preference for the UK comes in spite of a slew of policy changes affecting international students. In May, the government unveiled its long-awaited immigration white paper, setting out the way Keir Starmer’s Labour party intends to tackle migration over the coming years.
It included plans to reduce the Graduate Route by six months to a total of 18 months, as well as new compliance metrics that higher education institutions must in order to continue recrutiing international students. Tougher Basic Compliance Assessment (BCA) requirements are set to take effect this month, meaning that universities will face penalties if more than 5% of their students’ visas are rejected, down from 10%.
And last September, the UK increased international student maintenance requirements for the first time since 2020. Under the new rules, students coming to London must show evidence of having £1,483 per month, while studying outside of London need proof that they have at least £1,136 per month.
But NCUK’s chief marketing officer Andy Howells pointed out that students are looking beyond arbitrary political decision when choosing their preferred study destination, thinking instead about their long-term prospects.
“This research demonstrates that international students are sophisticated decision-makers who look beyond political headlines to focus on educational quality and career outcomes,” he said. “While policy changes generate significant discussion in our sector, students are primarily motivated by the academic excellence and opportunities that institutions can provide.”
The survey found that, of a sample size of 646 students, just 12% who said they were considering studying in the UK said that financial requiremwnr increases would stop them from applying to UK instiutuons.
However, the popularity of other major study destinations were ore impacted by political headwinds, the survey found.
Over a third (36%) interested in applying the Australian institutions said that proposed international enrolment caps would affect their decision, while 26% of those looking to study in Canada said they would no longer apply to Canadian institutions over policy changes – particularly changes to the country’s postgraduate work permit scheme.
And almost four in 10 (38%) considering the US said Donald Trump’s second presidency would negatively impact their choice to study in America.
For the majority of students surveyed (69.9%), education quality is the primary driver leading them to seek study abroad opportunities, closely followed by enhanced career development opportunities (56.4%) and gaining new knowledge (55.2%).
The survey also shone a light on students’ post-graduation plans. Half of respondents said they wanted to stay in their study destination, with 31% planning to work and 19% looking at further studies.
This research demonstrates that international students are sophisticated decision-makers who look beyond political headlines to focus on educational quality and career outcomes Andy Howells, NCUK
But a growing number of students plan to return to their hoe country immediately after graduating, with 23% saying they want to do this – up from 18% in last year’s survey.
Immigration has continued to be a hot topic in the UK as the anti-immigration Reform party grows in popularity.
Just earlier this week, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper drew ire from the international education sector after announcing that the government will be tougher on overseas students who make asylum claims that “lack merit” as a means to stay in the country after their visa expires.
Some 10,000 students have already been texted and emailed warning them that they will not be allowed to stay in the UK if they have no legal right to remain and explicitly warning them against making bogus asylum claims.
Hamish Coates, Ellen Hazelkorn, Hans de Wit, Tessa Delaquil, and Angel Calderon
Hans de Wit, Ellen Hazelkorn and Hamish Coates are editors and Tessa DeLaquil is associate editor of Policy Reviews in Higher Education. Angel Calderon is a member of the PRiHE Editorial Board. This blog is based on their editorial for issue 2, 2025.
It often feels like there is lots more ranting and moaning than imagining and evidencing around higher education these days. With excellent policy research, it does not have to be this way.
The immediate post-millennium era was arguably a golden age for universities, with huge interest in massification, investment, especially in research, and institutional autonomy. But the global financial crisis followed a decade later by global pandemic shocked higher education into different worlds. Most countries still promulgate objectives for a sustainable and cost-efficient, equitable and accessible, high quality education system as the basis for growth. In OECD countries, however, assumptions that massification would on its own provide opportunities for everyone with mechanisms for social inclusion and social mobility are being heavily questioned. In developing and emerging economies, the challenge is meeting demand and being able to absorb graduates. Yet, too many countries and research-focused universities keep chasing ‘quick prestige’, leaving others to put up with disproportionately lower funding, as well as poorer facilities, resources and opportunities.
Wealth and opportunity inequalities are increasingly greater within rather than between countries. At the same time, questions about educational outcomes such as employability, skills gaps and skills mismatches and over-qualification which have been long ignored by academic communities as irrelevant, are gaining public and policy traction. Governments and industries document the shift away from credentials towards greater focus on competencies – what people can do with what they know – and alternative accreditation processes.
A few large countries are in the foothills of a demographic cliff, while others are (currently) privileged by demand. Traditional public systems in many countries face an identity crisis and appear too sluggish to grasp new opportunities. Parts of the private subsector are progressively active and more responsive to the needs of diverse and older learners and to competency-based learning, micro-credentials and other forms of just-in-time learning. Accordingly, the private sector is the fastest growing segment of postsecondary education worldwide.
Countries vary considerably in their ability to cover costs associated with policy objectives due to revenue challenges and competitive demands elsewhere within society and the economy, alongside student and public unease about cost. Certain systems promote a laissez-faire or marketised approach whereby individual colleges and institutions (public and private) pursue their own agendas, while others grasp at opportunities for a more strategic state-led approach. Countries are beginning to examine the opportunities of a more joined-up post-secondary tertiary system (Hazelkorn, 2025). As Piketty has written, “it is access to skills and diffusion of knowledge that allow inequality to be reduced both within countries and at the international level” (2020: 534). But funding a mass system is very different from one catering to a small minority especially at a time when geopolitical/geoeconomic power shifts reshape the global landscape.
Deglobalisation and populist nationalism are shaking these issues out differently around the world. In many countries, these tensions are contributing to a growing sense of people and communities being left behind, and to social unrest. The dominance of information technology over universities, challenging the value of graduates for entry-level work and of faculty, will spur heightened questioning of the value of higher education (Coates, 2017; The Guardian, 2025; Roose, 2025). While others look on in disbelief, there is a sense that this may not be a problem for higher education today, though it is likely to be so one day.
It is too easy to blame governments and other external stakeholders. What role has higher education played itself, and what role can it play into the future? Is the sector, especially the public side, sufficiently strategic, forward-looking and adaptable? What are the implications for the governance of the system and of its many institutions? Or is it wandering unchained in the global wilds? Universities praise themselves as being one of the world’s oldest and most enduring institution, but as Darwin said: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”
Once, such questions may have been ludicrous to provoke at the outset of a Policy Reviews in Higher Education (PRIHE) editorial. Not anymore. Accordingly, in the balance of this editorial we sketch frontier topics which higher education can embrace to drive positive reform, then current journal contributions (Figure 1). We conclude with a call to engage and transform.
Figure 1: Current and frontier contributions
Any higher education policy zealot who has read Arnold Lobel’s brilliant treatise on Owl’s strange bumps in the bed (in which the Owl is afraid to go to sleep because of two strange bumps at the bottom of his bed, which are, in fact, his feet) (Lobel, 1982) understands that fear is created by running scared and can be tackled by uncovering and addressing matters in ways that unlock innovation and progress.
Policy Reviews in Higher Education plays this important role, though to date with fewer endearing drawings. Springing from inspiring intellectual dialogue with a member of the PRIHE Editorial Board and consequently guest author, Angel Calderon, we mark out a handful of narratives to carry forward policy research over the coming decades:
Moving beyond academic comfort communities
Handling looming demographic shifts and diversity
Addressing concerns about academic value
Creatively unpacking university clusterings and characteristics
Leaders who lead in smart ways.
Higher education researchers must explore how universities and the academics who comprise them can move beyond comfort communities. This means finding ways to move beyond conservative research literatures and straightjacketing bibliometrics, beyond discipline and collegial communities, beyond the academic treadmill, beyond the subsector itself, and beyond naval-gazing research. A doctorate followed by decades toiling in the same institution is no prudent recipe for forging broader cognitive or tangible engagement with enterprise and industry (public and private) and the broader world. How can career trajectories be redefined to evoke and even provoke experimentation, fertilisation, and broader contribution?
Policy researchers must find productive ways for helping universities handle looming demographic shifts. The Asian investment in higher education which has fuelled the last thirty years will plateau and in major instances decline. Smart countries and universities are already looking beyond increasingly risky ‘foreign and school-leaver markets’ at reconfigured alignments with career-inspiring work and adult life. As yet, however, few if any countries have policy and associated regulation or funding to spur new ventures and directions. Beyond the sensible need for regional or perhaps global ‘harmonisation’, what is the scope for more imaginative forward-thinking about the sort of institutional reconfigurations needed to deliver for societies in 2050? Also, universities continue to see international students as an alternative for demographic declines as well as for income generation, adopting imperialist approaches to new markets rather than anticipating global and local shifts. Internationalisation is still seen as an income source based on mobility flows, instead of as a possible change agent for innovation in education, research and service to society.
Genuine political concerns about academic quality and value are unlikely to be assuaged by fluffing up the fame of elite researchers who typically have little to do with students or voting communities. Graduate outcomes and relevance are some of the most pressing challenges for all governments pushing people to question the value of higher education and ensure it translates into good jobs. Broadening rankings to include topics like sustainability, while useful, misses the more substantial need to focus on local engagement rather than global striving. It is folly to think that all the ~88,000 higher education institutions (UNESCO, 2022: 12) should aspire to look the same. Pursuit of ‘world-class’ sameness is no substitute for critical research and delivery of more robust and compelling public information on value, quality of educational delivery and outcomes, and at the same time nuanced differentiation of the difference each and every institution can make. And arguably rankings bear increasing responsibility for distorting funding allocations and institutional/government priorities across many post-secondary systems.
Higher education sector growth in recent decades has spawned exciting, misunderstood and very important institutional and national configurations. There is an urgent need to creatively unpack university clusterings. Far too much time and money has been invested in studying groups characterised by bibliometric performance. More interestingly, there are university-defined groups, ranging from ‘presidents’ dinner clubs’ to disciplinary groups of nationally aligned associations. There are broader political, cultural and religious associations. There are groups connected through graduate or professional diasporas, or research connections. There is an emergent clustering of associations shaped by geopolitical/geoeconomic and national security imperatives. Ownership and tax-status has long been a means of shuffling universities into groups. What novel patterns and projections can be revealed?
With the intent of curating even more purposeful contributions, PRIHErecently launched a call for experts around the world to curate cognate collections on a high-impact policy contributions. These contributions which relate to hot topics in higher education policy seek to engage a group of scholars around important themes, and work with the journal and related networks to convene hybrid global seminars and deliver substantial insights on consequential frontier issues. PRIHE’s Editorial Board and Editors have spotlighted six shaping themes which raise questions, insights and issues to be addressed by policy, drawing on experiences from around the world. These include:
Proving contributions: Restoring public trust in higher education and universities
Emerging formations: Transnational, online and private higher education, regulation, ethics
Global challenges: Sustaining autonomy, academic freedom, purposeful research, independence
Lifelong learning: Valuing higher learning and skills across the lifespan, and
Valuing education: Raising the profile of large-scale teaching and learning.
Higher education in many if not most countries is confronting strong headwinds and needs strident thinking and reform rather than rent-seeking complacency. Carving out intellectual architectures to stimulate dialogue from disorder creates tailwinds for the tough work then required to create and promulgate the evidence which may sway policy and reform practice. In this editorial we have advanced a handful of non-ignorable developments as a guide for authorship, deliberation, and reforming practice.
Reference: Hazelkorn, E (2025) ‘Building a Unified Tertiary Education System. Trends and Propositions to Provoke Discussion, Trending Topics’ New Directions for Community Colleges Forthcoming.
Professor Ellen Hazelkorn is Joint Managing Partner, BH Associates. She is Professor Emeritus, Technological University Dublin.
Hamish Coates is professor of public policy, director of the Higher Education Futures Lab, and global tertiary education expert.
Hans de Wit is Professor Emeritus and Distinguished Fellow of the Boston College Center for International Higher Education, Senior Fellow of the international Association of Universities.
Tessa DeLaquil is postdoctoral research fellow at the School of Education at University College Dublin.
Angel Calderon is Director of Strategic Insights at RMIT University and expert on global tertiary education.
It was early November 2024 when Secretary of State for Education Bridget Philipson issued her edict to heads of institution in England, confirming the government’s plans to increase the undergraduate fee threshold to £9,535 from 2025–26, and setting out her five priorities for higher education.
Ten months on and there remains not a great deal of additional flesh on those bones. The planned summer white paper on post-16 education and skills, incorporating HE reform, has been pushed to the autumn. In the interim, while the Office for Students (OfS) has stepped up its work on financial sustainability, it’s clear that the government is not minded to ride to the rescue of the sector at system level, whatever it might decide to do about financially challenged institutions.
The Spending Review was accompanied by the announcement of a further squeeze on the Strategic Priorities Grant. The immigration white paper proposed a six per cent levy on international fees. The prospect of an ongoing annual inflationary fee threshold uplift remains unconfirmed. And the rollout of the Lifelong Learning Entitlement, while potentially paradigm-shifting in the long term, offers mostly short-term pain and expense for rather limited gains.
This area is getting greyer
Though ministers probably wouldn’t articulate it like this, at stake is the status of higher education as a “public realm” sector. It’s not currently politically or economically advantageous for government to be seen to take seriously the sector’s financial concerns even where there are signs of systemic weakness in the funding model. That pragmatic (or cynical, if you prefer) position is bolstered by a regulatory framework that views higher education providers primarily through the lens of service provision to students rather than as public institutions providing a range of public goods in places.
Yet for a government that is politically and economically concerned with the provision of public goods in places, nor is it especially politically palatable to lean into the notion of independent higher education providers doing whatever they can to ensure their own success and sustainability rather than acting with reference to wider common purposes.
There’s often a strong degree of overlap between institutional interests and the public interest – arguably one critical dimension of higher education leadership is being able to locate and occupy that common ground. Two things can be true: institutions can, and do, pursue both their own self-interest and the common good, simultaneously. And discussion of abstract concepts like public and private obviously ignores the actions and motivations of individual institutions, many of whom go to quite a lot of trouble and expense to work with and for the interests of their stakeholders.
But at system level what you think an “HE reform package” should include depends very much on how much you think the private interests of HE institutions diverge from the wider public interest, in what areas of activity, and the extent to which you think the government can or should do something about it. And I don’t think those questions have yet been resolved in the corridors of power, where arguably the locus of responsibility for “higher education” as an object of policy remains scattered.
It is relatively easy to point to examples of where the HE market model has created areas of concern – particularly when it comes to loss of subject diversity in particular regions or localities, or a lack of a subject offer in an area of known skills gaps, or to the rising costs to students and parents of sustaining full-time study, or to the risks to academic quality arising from particular modes of delivery or from instability in institutional finances. It’s much harder to articulate a policy settlement that articulates appropriate, measured, inexpensive and effective government intervention at system level to realign institutional and public interest where there appears to be divergence.
In particular, when it comes to questions of “transformation” – in the sense of individual institutions changing their academic portfolio, or use of technology; in the sense of institutions joining together to create efficiencies or realise additional value from scale or coordination; and in the sense of the future overall size and shape of the sector – the role of government remains opaque. It may be possible that “transformation” will happen in response to market demand and financial pressure and be funded from private sources. It may also be possible that “transformation” will only occur with some active convening (and financing) from government. Whatever the claims made about what ought to be happening, nobody really has a firm view on how much transformation is really required, what it should look like, or whose responsibility it is to make it happen.
It’s possibly not all that surprising, then, that what has emerged from government on higher education in the last academic year has been rather “bitty” – to use the appropriate technical term. A consultation on franchised provision here, a revision to free speech legislation there, a slide deck on preparing for the LLE over here, a cheeky new levy over there. Don’t expect a grandiose new vision for HE to emerge this year; instead turn your mind to deciding whether the sum total of all the things that will be occupying minds in the year ahead add up to something that equals a material change of state for the sector.
It’s all coming up
When the post-16 education and skills plus HE reform paper does show up, it will almost certainly hit some familiar notes: regional economic growth; skills; opportunity. We know there’s an appetite in government to think about “coordination” of post-16 providers in places and an aspiration to deploy a more coordinated approach to streamline everything from the regional skills offer to employer engagement.
Policy architecture available includes the Devolution Bill, Skills England, the planned Growth and Skills Levy replacing the Apprenticeships Levy, and the Lifelong Learning Entitlement – as well as OfS’ signals on a shift to a more regional approach to widening access. There is significant support in principle for the notion of coordination for the benefit of places, but a glaring absence of ideas of how independent providers might be not only brought to the table but arrive at a consensus about who should offer what kind of education opportunity to whom.
Also potentially in the mix for an “HE reform” package, if Bridget Phillipson’s priorities haven’t shifted in the last ten months, are academic quality, civic engagement, and efficiency. The Department for Education has not yet said what its plans are with regard to tightening up oversight of franchised provision, following its consultation earlier this year, so that may well appear also. OfS is already planning to consult on its planned new integrated quality framework in the autumn, so assuming there is effective coordination between government and the regulator there should be alignment between what the government proposes and what OfS consults on.
One wild card to look out for is institutional governance – OfS has signalled in the past year that it has concerns about the ability of boards of governors to effectively manage financial sustainability challenges, whether that is in securing academic quality under pressure or retaining effective oversight of new partnerships and income streams, and that concern has been reinforced in communications from DfE. While it would be surprising to see government take a view on the constitution of boards or on the codes of practice they are encouraged to adhere to, it would not be entirely unexpected to see a request for OfS to further extend or strengthen regulatory oversight in this area. Elsewhere on the site, incoming Advance HE chief executive Alistair Jarvis has signalled some key priorities for development in governance within weeks of taking up the role.
A further wild card would be something on graduate employability – previously ministers have suggested that institutions whose graduates do less well in the labour market by the current measures should cut the pay of their heads of institution. While that’s a proposal that obviously plays well for media, it doesn’t amount to a serious policy. But with (probably wildly overstated) concerns doing the rounds about graduate jobs and AI, and (much more sensible) questions about the value of graduate skills in different parts of the country feeding directly into ideas about equity of opportunity, government may well feel this is an area it wants to make a target for policymaking.
Doing more with less
The future of research funding seems increasingly lashed to the mast of economic growth. It is the golden thread that runs through UKRI’s latest plans, the basis of the industrial strategy, and UKRI rates financial sustainability within the research system as high risk and high likelihood.
2025–26 is going to be about who gets paid, on what basis, and how the impact of the resulting research activity will be measured. Everyone’s favourite forever debate, the future of REF, fits neatly within this financial triangle. 2025–26 should bring certainty, if not consensus, on the shape of the next REF, even if the overall sum up for grabs is a fraction of the overall R&D budget. Given the timescales involved in REF it is likely that there will be some kind of announcement in the next few weeks on its future.
Place is going to continue to be the primary lens through which economic growth is discussed. The Local Innovation Partnership will launch this academic year with at least £30 million for each of ten regions across the UK, including one in each of the devolved nations. The success of the industrial strategy is entirely reliant on improving productivity across the country so expect to see new funds, tweaks to existing funds, debates on devolutions deals, and a raft of place based initiatives coming from the sector.
Once UKRI’s new mission leads are in post, along with UKRI’s new chief executive who is now in his role, the sector should have a clearer sense of how their work will align with the government’s missions. It would be refreshing if the new personnel also usher in a new era of stability across the research ecosystem. The evolving work into research evaluation may prove a useful tool in this mission.
Of course economic growth is limited by the financial reality universities find themselves in. There is lots of concern about full economic costing (FEC) but very little action on reducing the financial burden of research. There are clear signals of reduced capital spending and following UKRI’s outgoing chief executives statement on the possibility of research consolidation it looks like frugality will continue to be a reality for many.
Away from home this version of Horizon Europe enters its penultimate year with the UK’s entrance to the new scheme the government’s preferred option. The ongoing trampling of academic norms in America will continue to shape UK-US partnerships while the future of UK-China research partnerships will once again be at the mercy of global politics.
At a more institutional level an outcome on the publishers agreements negotiations between the sector and five of the major publishers looks to be coming to a head. The sector currently spends £112 million annually on Jisc negotiated agreements with the five largest publishers. A decision on whether to accept or reject the publishers proposals is due imminently. If the offer is rejected there will be significant pressure to find agreement or an alternative before the end of the current deals in 2026.
It is no secret that Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology is transforming college classrooms. AI tools can easily and quickly assist students in various tasks such as essay writing, literature reviews, analyzing data, formulating code, solving equations, image generation, music composition, and so much more. With minimal or no effort, within minutes, students have most assignments, test questions, or discussion problems figured out and done…enter the chaos!
As educators, this means everything that we experienced in our own education and have worked years to develop is changing. We need to rethink our role, assignments, as well as formative and summative assessments of student learning all while AI capabilities change daily.
Through all this, we feel educators can take one concrete step to control the chaos by Communicating How AI Operates in the Syllabus (C.H.A.O.S). This article highlights the significance of AI usage policies and what elements should be considered in the policy. It also provides a few useful tips to implement AI policies.
Is there a need to specify the AI usage policy in the class syllabus?
Including an AI usage policy offers clarity to students regarding acceptable usage of AI tools. Although educators are making attempts to develop campus-wide consensus about AI tools, different sections of the same course may have different AI usage policies and practices depending on the instructor and their comfort level. When an explicit AI usage policy is stated in the syllabus, students (and faculty members) can be held accountable for upholding that policy. Any incidents of inappropriate AI usage or cheating can be dealt with within the framework of the policy mentioned.
What are the elements of an AI policy?
A clear AI usage policy needs to have at least three elements – acceptable use, citations necessary, and consequences of non-adherence to the policy. The first element, a well-formulated AI usage policy, specifies acceptable AI usage in learning processes, e.g. brainstorming and creating outlines. In the policy, it is beneficial to provide examples of unacceptable usage, e.g. using whole paragraphs of AI text or writing the whole essay. To develop the acceptable use portion, faculty need to take time and honestly reflect on how they see AI tools being integrated into classroom learning, career fields, and life in general. This can range from absolutely no AI usage to intentional integration of the tools in the classroom space. Your level of familiarity, acceptance of, and perceived value in AI will help shape what is allowed.
The second element is to determine how AI usage needs to be acknowledged and cited appropriately. Again, it is helpful to provide a sample citation as students may be unfamiliar with the norms of citations while taking initial undergraduate courses.
Furthermore, AI tools often include biases, inaccuracies, or sometimes hallucinations. Humans using AI tools, in this case students, need to be aware of these shortcomings and understand that even with proper citations they will be held accountable for not reviewing and verifying the accuracy of their work before submitting. So, the citation element in the syllabus must explain that the ultimate responsibility of academic rigor for the assignment submitted lies with the student.
The last element should outline information about how the instructor will deal with non-adherence to the policy. As an instructor, will you provide a chance for students to resubmit the work? Will the usage result in a loss of points, a zero for the assignment, or a failing grade in the course? How will AI usage be checked? How will you communicate it to students? What is the process and who is involved? These are a few questions that can help an educator shape their usage policy.
Implementing AI usage policy
A few additional steps can be taken when implementing an AI usage policy to make the process smoother. Given the varied nature of AI use policy in various courses, it would be helpful to have a classroom discussion early on (day 1) and throughout the semester with each assignment and exam. Researchers have suggested using a stoplight framework e.g., Red – No AI is allowed in this course; Green – AI tools are allowed and encouraged; and Yellow- AI is permitted for following activities only (Urbaczewski, 2025).
Regularly talking about AI usage may remove some of the pressure from students who want to express themselves through their essays or art and feel seen/heard but may be afraid that their grades will be poorer if they don’t use AI tools. Sharing stories of how past students have effectively, or ineffectively, utilized AI in their work can be helpful in mitigating inappropriate usage.
Another possible step is to introduce scaffolding in high stakes summative assignments such as end of the semester projects. Instead of a one-time submission worth 100 points, students could submit intermediate steps and include the prompts they may have used to get a response from AI tools such as ChatGPT or Perplexity. Some instructors may offer extra credit for such intermediate steps.
Unlike grading or attendance policies in the syllabus, AI usage policies will be dynamic. As AI technology advances, the definition of academic integrity may need to be revisited. Faculty members may need to revise this policy each semester and update it to ensure that students are meeting learning outcomes. As the educational landscape continues to evolve, remember you can get a handle on the chaos by introducing C.H.A.O.S to keep your syllabi in alignment with the current times.
AI Disclosure: AI tools such as Editor in MS Word were used for checking grammar and spelling. No AI tools were used for brainstorming or writing this article.
Simantini Karve, PhD, is a professor of biology and professional development co-coordinator at Skyline College, San Bruno, CA.
Jessica Hurless was a professor of Communication Studies and currently serves as the Dean STEM division at Skyline College, San Bruno, CA.
Reference
Urbaczewski, Andrew, “Developing a syllabus for is course usage in the ai era” (2025). Proceedings of 2024 AIS SIGED International Conference on Information Systems Education and Research. 16. https://aisel.aisnet.org/siged2024/16
It is no secret that Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology is transforming college classrooms. AI tools can easily and quickly assist students in various tasks such as essay writing, literature reviews, analyzing data, formulating code, solving equations, image generation, music composition, and so much more. With minimal or no effort, within minutes, students have most assignments, test questions, or discussion problems figured out and done…enter the chaos!
As educators, this means everything that we experienced in our own education and have worked years to develop is changing. We need to rethink our role, assignments, as well as formative and summative assessments of student learning all while AI capabilities change daily.
Through all this, we feel educators can take one concrete step to control the chaos by Communicating How AI Operates in the Syllabus (C.H.A.O.S). This article highlights the significance of AI usage policies and what elements should be considered in the policy. It also provides a few useful tips to implement AI policies.
Is there a need to specify the AI usage policy in the class syllabus?
Including an AI usage policy offers clarity to students regarding acceptable usage of AI tools. Although educators are making attempts to develop campus-wide consensus about AI tools, different sections of the same course may have different AI usage policies and practices depending on the instructor and their comfort level. When an explicit AI usage policy is stated in the syllabus, students (and faculty members) can be held accountable for upholding that policy. Any incidents of inappropriate AI usage or cheating can be dealt with within the framework of the policy mentioned.
What are the elements of an AI policy?
A clear AI usage policy needs to have at least three elements – acceptable use, citations necessary, and consequences of non-adherence to the policy. The first element, a well-formulated AI usage policy, specifies acceptable AI usage in learning processes, e.g. brainstorming and creating outlines. In the policy, it is beneficial to provide examples of unacceptable usage, e.g. using whole paragraphs of AI text or writing the whole essay. To develop the acceptable use portion, faculty need to take time and honestly reflect on how they see AI tools being integrated into classroom learning, career fields, and life in general. This can range from absolutely no AI usage to intentional integration of the tools in the classroom space. Your level of familiarity, acceptance of, and perceived value in AI will help shape what is allowed.
The second element is to determine how AI usage needs to be acknowledged and cited appropriately. Again, it is helpful to provide a sample citation as students may be unfamiliar with the norms of citations while taking initial undergraduate courses.
Furthermore, AI tools often include biases, inaccuracies, or sometimes hallucinations. Humans using AI tools, in this case students, need to be aware of these shortcomings and understand that even with proper citations they will be held accountable for not reviewing and verifying the accuracy of their work before submitting. So, the citation element in the syllabus must explain that the ultimate responsibility of academic rigor for the assignment submitted lies with the student.
The last element should outline information about how the instructor will deal with non-adherence to the policy. As an instructor, will you provide a chance for students to resubmit the work? Will the usage result in a loss of points, a zero for the assignment, or a failing grade in the course? How will AI usage be checked? How will you communicate it to students? What is the process and who is involved? These are a few questions that can help an educator shape their usage policy.
Implementing AI usage policy
A few additional steps can be taken when implementing an AI usage policy to make the process smoother. Given the varied nature of AI use policy in various courses, it would be helpful to have a classroom discussion early on (day 1) and throughout the semester with each assignment and exam. Researchers have suggested using a stoplight framework e.g., Red – No AI is allowed in this course; Green – AI tools are allowed and encouraged; and Yellow- AI is permitted for following activities only (Urbaczewski, 2025).
Regularly talking about AI usage may remove some of the pressure from students who want to express themselves through their essays or art and feel seen/heard but may be afraid that their grades will be poorer if they don’t use AI tools. Sharing stories of how past students have effectively, or ineffectively, utilized AI in their work can be helpful in mitigating inappropriate usage.
Another possible step is to introduce scaffolding in high stakes summative assignments such as end of the semester projects. Instead of a one-time submission worth 100 points, students could submit intermediate steps and include the prompts they may have used to get a response from AI tools such as ChatGPT or Perplexity. Some instructors may offer extra credit for such intermediate steps.
Unlike grading or attendance policies in the syllabus, AI usage policies will be dynamic. As AI technology advances, the definition of academic integrity may need to be revisited. Faculty members may need to revise this policy each semester and update it to ensure that students are meeting learning outcomes. As the educational landscape continues to evolve, remember you can get a handle on the chaos by introducing C.H.A.O.S to keep your syllabi in alignment with the current times.
AI Disclosure: AI tools such as Editor in MS Word were used for checking grammar and spelling. No AI tools were used for brainstorming or writing this article.
Simantini Karve, PhD, is a professor of biology and professional development co-coordinator at Skyline College, San Bruno, CA.
Jessica Hurless was a professor of Communication Studies and currently serves as the Dean STEM division at Skyline College, San Bruno, CA.
Reference
Urbaczewski, Andrew, “Developing a syllabus for is course usage in the ai era” (2025). Proceedings of 2024 AIS SIGED International Conference on Information Systems Education and Research. 16. https://aisel.aisnet.org/siged2024/16
Just a week after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to restrict gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors in June, the U.S. Department of Education began citing that decision in findings related to transgender access to athletics.
Although the high court’s ruling in U.S. vs. Skrmettidid not directly involve education civil rights law, the Trump administration has relied on it to bolster its stance that Title IX can be used to exclude transgender students from teams aligning with their gender identities.
The Supreme Court’s decision said a person’s identification as “transgender” is distinct from their “biological sex.” However, it did not touch on whether discrimination against transgender people amounts to sex-based discrimination.
But the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights is using the decision to inform Title IX cases that have excluded transgender students from protections against sex-based discrimination. The decision’s use in OCR policy is leading to double-takes from Title IX experts, although one said district leaders may not have to change anything for now since the Supreme Court has placed a transgender athletics case on its docket for the next term.
The Trump administration has cited the Skrmetti case in at least two OCR cases related to transgender access to athletics.
In a June 25 press release, OCR cited the case in its finding that the California Department of Education and California Interscholastic Federation violated Title IX by discriminating against girls and women after the state allowed transgender students to play on girls’ sports teams.
“On June 18, 2025, the Supreme Court upheld a Tennessee law banning certain medical care for minors related to treating ‘gender dysphoria, gender identity disorder, or gender incongruence,’” OCR said in its news release. “In so holding, the Supreme Court acknowledged that a person’s identification as ‘transgender’ is distinct from a person’s ‘biological sex.’”
The department also cited the case in its July 27 finding that five large Northern Virginia school districts, including Fairfax County Public Schools, discriminated on the basis of sex when they allowed transgender students to access facilities aligning with their gender identities.
“There has been a little bit of a selective stretching,” said Kayleigh Baker, an advisory board member for the Association of Title IX Administrators. Baker and other ATIXA attorneys routinely work with school districts to train them on education civil rights laws.
“The four corners of the Supreme Court opinions have sort of been extrapolated and sort of merged together with this administration’s interpretation in a couple of arenas. And it seems like this is another one of those,” Baker said.
Jay Worona, partner at law firm Jaspan Schlesinger Narendran, said the Education Department did something similar with the Supreme Court’s 2023 SFFA v. Harvard decision banning race-conscious admissions.
Worona said in an email that the administration has used the case to argue that “K-12 school districts violate civil rights protections of students when they enact policies and engage in practices advancing DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] despite the Supreme Court’s decision in that case only applying to higher education institutions.”
In February, the agency issued a Dear Colleague letter to prohibit the consideration of race in many more aspects of educational programming, including “financial aid, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, discipline, housing, graduation ceremonies, and all other aspects of student, academic, and campus life.”
“Although SFFA addressed admissions decisions, the Supreme Court’s holding applies more broadly,” the Education Department said in its letter to districts. “At its core, the test is simple: If an educational institution treats a person of one race differently than it treats another person because of that person’s race, the educational institution violates the law.”
Although a federal judge blocked that Dear Colleague letter last week, the department said in a statement that while it “is disappointed in the judge’s ruling, judicial action enjoining or setting aside this guidance has not stopped our ability to enforce Title VI protections for students at an unprecedented level.”
Is this practice usual?
This is not necessarily different from the practices of past administrations in applying Supreme Court decisions to education civil rights. The Biden administration, for example, applied the landmark Bostock v. Clayton Countycase — which protected LGBTQ+ people from sex discrimination in the workplace — to protect LGBTQ+ students under Title IX in the classroom.
“In that way, some of this is to be expected,” said Baker.
But whereas the Biden administration issued an official letter announcing its interpretation for schools to implement, the Trump administration quietly tucked its application of Skrmetti into its Title IX investigation announcements.
And while Bostock answered the question of whether discrimination against LGBTQ+ people amounts to sex discrimination in the workplace, Skrmetti does not directly address whether discrimination against transgender students is sex-based discrimination in any setting — educational or otherwise.
“The Department’s press releases cite the Skrmetti decision to highlight that the Supreme Court in its recent ruling substantiated the obvious: sex is an immutable characteristic,” a department spokesperson said in a statement to K-12 Dive on Monday.
Regardless, the Supreme Court is set to explicitly answer the question of whether Title IX policy bars transgender students from athletics and facilities aligning with their gender identities next term.
In July, the justices took on a pair of cases that could set nationwide precedent on transgender athletic participation in public schools — finally ending a policy pingpong that has persisted over the last three presidential administrations.
Until such a decision, Baker said, district leaders should check with their local counsel, as application of Title IX for transgender students may vary based on state law rather than on Skrmetti.
“I don’t think based solely off of the Skrmetti decision that districts need to jump into any changes,” said Baker.
For schools, colleges, and universities, social media has become more than just a communications tool. It’s now a primary stage for community engagement, student recruitment, and institutional storytelling. It’s where prospects discover programs, parents check updates, and alumni stay connected. But here’s the challenge: opportunity without clear guidelines can quickly lead to risk. Without a social media policy, schools leave themselves vulnerable to privacy breaches, inconsistent messaging, blurred boundaries between staff and students, misinformation, accessibility oversights, and even regulatory non-compliance.
That’s why a strong, modern school social media policy is essential. It empowers your team with a clear mandate, sets guardrails for professional and ethical use, and establishes workflows that make social platforms a strategic advantage rather than a liability. Done right, a policy doesn’t stifle creativity; it gives staff, faculty, and student ambassadors the confidence to represent your institution authentically, safely, and effectively.
This guide will walk you through a step-by-step, practical framework for building a school social media policy from the ground up. Drawing on Canadian legal requirements like PIPEDA, MFIPPA, and FOIP/FOIPPA, as well as accessibility standards such as AODA and WCAG, we’ll highlight best practices you can adapt to your own institutional context. We’ll also pull in examples from reputable policies and toolkits already in use across the education sector, so you can see how schools of all sizes, from K-12 districts to large universities, are tackling this challenge.
The goal? To help you design a policy that protects your institution, builds trust with your community, and unlocks the full potential of social media as a driver of engagement and recruitment.
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Step 1: Scope and Objectives (Set the Mandate)
The first step in building a school social media policy is setting its scope and objectives. In other words, define exactly what the policy will and won’t cover, and establish its purpose. Without a clear mandate, policies can easily become either too vague to be useful or so broad they’re unenforceable.
Start with the scope. Your policy should outline the types of accounts and activities it governs. This typically includes:
Official institutional accounts (the main school, college, or university channels).
Department, program, and athletics accounts are managed under the institutional brand.
Professional use of social media by staff when tied to their role at the institution.
Personal accounts only when they intersect with professional responsibilities, for example, when an employee references their school role in a bio or shares institutional content.
It’s equally important to clarify who the policy applies to. Most schools extend it beyond full-time employees to include contractors, volunteers, trustees or board members, and student workers. That ensures consistency across every voice representing the institution.
Next, define platforms in scope. Policies usually include public-facing social networks (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X/Twitter, LinkedIn) and messaging apps when used for school business (e.g., WhatsApp, Slack, or Teams). Learning management systems (LMS) or academic collaboration tools like Brightspace or Google Classroom may be excluded if they’re already governed by separate policies.
Finally, tie the scope to objectives. A strong policy should:
Support institutional values and brand consistency.
Protect privacy and data security.
Ensure compliance with laws and regulations.
Safeguard professional boundaries between staff, students, and the public.
Promote accessibility and inclusivity.
Provide clear guidance for staff and students so they can engage with confidence.
Example: Arcadia University’s social media policy explicitly applies to “all faculty, staff, students, trustees, volunteers, and third-party vendors” who manage accounts on behalf of the university. In other words, anyone handling an official or work-related social media presence is within the policy’s scope, not just employees. This breadth ensures a consistent standard across all channels and individuals associated with the school’s online presence.
Step 2: Risk and Needs Assessment (Ground It in Reality)
Before drafting rules, you need a clear picture of how social media is currently used across your institution. Start with an audit: which accounts exist, who manages them, what devices they use, and what level of access is granted? This mapping exercise not only shows how sprawling your social presence may be but also reveals immediate risks.
Categorize those risks clearly:
Privacy: posting student names, images, or personal data without consent.
Reputational: off-brand messaging, unmoderated comments, or negative publicity.
Operational: lost passwords, shadow accounts, or inactive pages damaging credibility.
Compliance: failures in records retention, accessibility (AODA/WCAG), or anti-spam legislation.
Example: University of Waterloo (Renison University College) – The School of Social Work’s social media policy begins with a frank acknowledgment of the rapidly changing social media landscape and the challenges it poses (e.g. blurred boundaries between students and professionals). It emphasizes the need for guidelines to protect everyone involved from “potential negative consequences,” directly addressing the risks and needs that prompted the policy. This reality-grounded preamble shows the policy was built in response to actual issues observed in practice.
Go further by interviewing principals, faculty, coaches, and IT/security staff. These conversations often uncover grey areas, like student leaders running unofficial team accounts or staff using messaging apps for school business.
For inspiration, review policies like the Toronto District School Board’s Procedure PR735, which provides clear guidance on professional use and compliance (TDSB PR735 PDF).
Finally, create a simple risk register (spreadsheet) listing each risk, its likelihood, potential impact, current controls, and planned mitigations. Revisit this quarterly to keep your policy grounded in reality, not theory.
Step 3: Core Legal and Policy Foundations (Canada-Specific)
Schools and their social media policy must be anchored in the laws and standards that govern privacy, access to information, and accessibility. In Canada, the framework varies depending on the type of institution.
For universities, colleges, and many independent schools in the private sector, PIPEDA applies. Its consent principles require that personal information be collected and shared only with meaningful consent that is specific, informed, and easy to withdraw (Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada).
Public institutions must look to provincial laws. In Ontario, MFIPPA governs how student information is collected, used, and disclosed (IPC Guide for Schools). In British Columbia, FOIPPA applies to boards, colleges, and universities, supported by practical guidance like the province’s social media tip sheet (BC FOIPPA Social Media Guide). In Alberta, FOIP covers public school authorities, with resources from the OIPC and universities.
What is an example of a social media policy? In higher education,Mohawk College’s Social Media Policy ties online activity directly to Canadian privacy laws, accessibility requirements, and internal codes of conduct, while also setting expectations for official accounts. For K–12,Greater Victoria School District Policy 1305 offers a concise framework rooted in district values and professionalism.
Accessibility is equally critical. In Ontario, the AODA requires that all digital communications be accessible, aligned with WCAG 2.0 levels A/AA.standards (Ontario Accessibility Guidance). Federally, the Treasury Board recommends WCAG 2.1 AA and EN 301 549 adoption (Government of Canada Digital Accessibility Toolkit).
Anchoring your policy in these laws ensures your institution not only reduces risk but also demonstrates accountability and inclusivity from the outset.
Example: Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC): NSCC’s Social Media Policy explicitly lists the Canadian laws and regulations that underpin acceptable social media use. It requires adherence to legislation such as Canada’s Anti-Spam Law (CASL), privacy laws like FOIPOP (provincial Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy) and PIPEDA, the Human Rights Act, the Intimate Images and Cyber-protection Act, the Copyright Act, etc., as well as relevant college policies. By doing so, NSCC ensures its policy is grounded in national and provincial legal frameworks, providing a clear legal context for users.
Strong governance is the backbone of any school’s social media policy. Start by maintaining a central registry of all official accounts, whether institutional, departmental, or program-specific. For each, assign three roles: an accountable owner, a backup owner, and a communications/marketing lead. This ensures continuity when staff change roles. Require two-factor authentication across platforms, prohibit credential sharing, and centralize credential storage where possible.
Visual consistency matters, too. Borrow from UBC Brand’s social media guidelines on avatars, logos, and naming conventions to maintain a unified institutional identity (UBC Brand Guidelines).
Before any new account launches, establish an approval workflow. Require an application form documenting the account’s purpose, audience, staffing plan, and moderation strategy. This prevents “shadow accounts” and ensures new initiatives align with institutional priorities.
Finally, don’t overlook records management. Communications conducted through official accounts may constitute institutional records under provincial law. Align your policy with your school’s records retention framework, clarifying who is responsible for archiving social content.
Example: McGill’s guidelines require each institutional account to have at least two staff administrators plus a “central communications” administrator, and that accounts be tied to a departmental email (not an individual’s email) for password recovery. These practices ensure accounts are not “personal fiefdoms,” they belong to the institution, and records (including login info and content archives) are managed responsibly.
For inspiration, look at NYC Public Schools’ staff social media guidance, which requires registration of official accounts and outlines monitoring expectations (NYCPS Guidelines). While U.S.-based, the governance structures translate well to Canadian contexts.
Step 5: Privacy, Consent, and Student–Staff Boundaries
Protecting personal information is one of the most important functions of a school’s social media policy. Define clearly what counts as personal data: names, images, video, voice recordings, and any identifiable details. As the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada advises, consent should always be obtained before posting content involving others online (OPC Guidance).
In Ontario, boards must ensure alignment with MFIPPA. For example, Abbotsford School District’s AP 324 media consent policy demonstrates best practices, including clear parental consent forms and proper recordkeeping (Abbotsford AP 324 PDF). Such models can guide how to design workflows that balance opportunity with privacy protection.
Equally critical are staff–student boundaries. Your policy should mandate the use of approved channels only, no personal phone numbers, no personal accounts, and no “friend” connections with students online. Communication must remain professional and transparent. NYC Public Schools provide a helpful benchmark, with explicit staff guidance and even age-specific student social media guidelines (NYCPS Staff Guidelines).
Example: Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB): TCDSB’s social media guidelines draw very clear lines to protect privacy and maintain professional boundaries. Staff are forbidden from “friending” or privately messaging students on personal social media – all communication with students must occur through official, school-sanctioned accounts and only for educational purposes. The policy also enforces strict consent rules: no student’s name, photo, or any identifying information may be posted on social media without written parental consent, and the use of student images on official accounts must follow the board’s annual consent process in compliance with Ontario privacy law (MFIPPA).
✅ Do use only approved institutional channels for all communication.
✅ Do secure and store consent forms before posting student content.
✅ Do respect privacy by default. When in doubt, leave it out.
❌ Don’t use personal accounts, texts, or private messaging apps with students.
❌ Don’t post identifiable student content without explicit, recorded consent.
❌ Don’t blur professional boundaries (e.g., friending or following students on personal profiles).
Are teachers allowed to post their students on social media? Yes, but only with appropriate consent and in full compliance with privacy legislation. In the private sector, PIPEDA requiresmeaningful consent. Ontario’s public boards must follow MFIPPA, with guidance from theIPC’s education resources. By embedding privacy safeguards and clear boundary rules, schools protect students, staff, and their reputation while still enabling authentic digital engagement.
Step 6: Content Rules, Moderation, Accessibility, and Contests
A strong social media policy must tell people what to post, how to post it, and how to manage responses. Start with standards for tone, accuracy, and brand alignment. Require respectful, inclusive language and clear disclosures (e.g., partnerships, sponsorships).
Next, define moderation. Borrow from BC’s corporate moderation policy (BC Gov Guidelines): state what comments are removed (hate speech, spam, off-topic promotions), how warnings are issued, and when accounts are blocked. Make moderation workflows transparent to staff and users.
Example: Queen’s University underscores the importance of moderation rights: they reserve the right to delete disruptive or defamatory posts, and to remove or block users who repeatedly violate guidelines. Like other schools, they want to allow dialogue but will intervene if someone is, for instance, spamming the page or attacking others. The guidelines mention that collaborators (i.e., those who contribute to Queen’s social media) must “obtain explicit permission to publish or report on conversations intended to be private or internal”. In other words, don’t take a private email or a closed meeting discussion and post it publicly without consent – doing so could breach confidentiality. Similarly, no confidential or proprietary info about the university or its partners should be shared on social media.
Accessibility is non-negotiable. Every post should follow WCAG 2.0 levels A/AA and AODA requirements: alt text for images, captions for videos, no text-only graphics, and accessible hashtags (#CapitalizeEachWord). See Ontario’saccessibility guide and Canada’sDigital Accessibility Toolkit.
Contests or giveaways add another layer. Do social media contests require special rules? Yes. Schools must comply with Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) when running promotions involving commercial electronic messages or online entries. TheCRTC’s CASL guide andFAQs explain consent and identification requirements. For drafting contest rules, see legal overviews byBLG (2025) andGowling WLG (2023).
Checklist for Staff:
✅ Post accurate, respectful, branded content
✅ Add alt text, captions, and accessible formatting
✅ Moderate comments against clear rules
✅ Secure consent before promotions/contests
❌ Don’t post text-in-images without alternatives
❌ Don’t run contests without legal review
Step 7: Training, Launch, Metrics, and Continuous Improvement
Even the strongest policy fails without training. Translate your guidelines into practice by building role-specific training modules for account owners, moderators, coaches, and student ambassadors. Incorporate Canadian digital literacy resources like MediaSmarts’ Digital Literacy Framework (overview;full PDF) to reinforce safe, ethical, and effective online engagement. Support staff with PD sessions, publish an internal FAQ, and run scenario-based exercises, such as managing a doxxing attempt or handling a viral misinformation post.
When launching, stagger the rollout: pilot in one department, gather feedback, and expand with adjustments. Communicate the policy widely so every stakeholder understands their role. Schedule quarterly refreshers to ensure compliance as platforms, tools, and threats evolve.
Example: University of British Columbia (UBC): UBC provides a detailed Social Media Playbook and Project Planning Tips to guide training and content planning for account managers. They recommend auditing capacity before launch, building content calendars, and using analytics for continuous improvement. UBC also sets platform-specific tips (e.g., mobile-first design, proper hashtag use) to elevate training beyond policy to practice.
Success requires measurement. Track metrics that matter: audience reach, engagement quality, average response time, accessibility compliance (captioning/alt-text rates), harmful content removal time, and incident frequency. Pair this with annual policy reviews against your risk register and evolving legal obligations. Document revisions and circulate them across the institution so no one is left behind.
Checklist for Staff:
Complete mandatory training before account access
Use MediaSmarts or similar frameworks for student modules
Run tabletop exercises annually
Measure engagement, accessibility, and incident response
Review/update policy yearly
How to Use This Checklist
Policies can sometimes feel abstract, but implementation lives in the details. To make your school or institution’s social media policy actionable, translate the principles into operational steps your teams can follow every day.
The following checklist is designed as a drop-in appendix: administrators can copy it directly into their policy, while communications teams and account owners can use it as a quick reference. It consolidates the essentials, governance, privacy, accessibility, moderation, and security into a single, practical tool. Review it regularly, update it as laws and platforms evolve, and use it as both a compliance safeguard and a training guide.
Operational Checklist (Copy-Paste into Your Policy)
Action
Reference / Example
Maintain a central registry of all official accounts, owners, and backups; enforce two-factor authentication on every account.
Creating a modern, compliant, and effective school social media policy isn’t just about managing risk. It’s also about empowering your institution to communicate with confidence. The right framework balances opportunity and responsibility, ensuring your teams can build authentic connections with students and families while safeguarding privacy, accessibility, and professionalism.
At Higher Education Marketing (HEM), we help schools, colleges, and universities do exactly that. From developing policies rooted in Canadian legal standards to training staff and student ambassadors on best practices, our team specializes in building digital strategies that drive engagement and enrollment. Whether you need support crafting your first policy, auditing existing processes, or integrating governance into a broader digital marketing strategy, HEM provides the expertise to make it happen.
In a digital-first world, trust and clarity are everything. By partnering with HEM, your institution can move forward with a social media policy that not only protects your community but also amplifies your brand in the right way.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Question: What is an example of a social media policy? Answer: In higher education,Mohawk College’s Social Media Policy ties online activity directly to Canadian privacy laws, accessibility requirements, and internal codes of conduct, while also setting expectations for official accounts. For K–12,Greater Victoria School District Policy 1305 offers a concise framework rooted in district values and professionalism.
Question: Are teachers allowed to post their students on social media? Answer: Yes, but only with appropriate consent and in full compliance with privacy legislation. In the private sector, PIPEDA requiresmeaningful consent. Ontario’s public boards must follow MFIPPA, with guidance from theIPC’s education resources.
Question: Do social media contests require special rules? Answer: Yes. Schools must comply with Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) when running promotions involving commercial electronic messages or online entries. TheCRTC’s CASL guide andFAQs explain consent and identification requirements. For drafting contest rules, see legal overviews byBLG (2025) andGowling WLG (2023).
