Tag: Programs

  • RIFs rip through federal Office of Special Education Programs

    RIFs rip through federal Office of Special Education Programs

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    During this tumultuous year at the U.S. Department of Education that saw about half of the 4,133 employees leave due to layoffs, buyouts and early retirements, the staff at the Office of Special Education Programs stayed mostly stable.

    That changed on Friday, however, when the Trump administration issued reduction-in-force notices across the federal government, including at the Education Department. Court filings show that 466 employees at the Education Department were impacted and several special education association leaders say most of the OSEP staff was laid off. 

    On Friday, the department’s press office confirmed that the RIFs affected staff at the Education Department but did not provide more details. 

    The National Association of State Directors of Special Education, in a statement on Sunday, said informal reports that NASDSE believes to be true indicate that only the two most senior staff remain in OSEP and just one staff member remains in the Rehabilitation Services Administration. Both offices are part of the Education Department’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services.

    NASDSE said it was “confused and concerned” by the staffing changes, adding that the Education Department under the Trump administration has repeatedly said it supports federal funding and implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and special education for children with disabilities.

    “These RIFs, if true, will make it impossible for the Department to fulfill those responsibilities,” the NASDSE statement said. “There is significant risk that not only will Federal funding lapse, but children with disabilities will be deprived” of a free, appropriate public education.

    Like NASDSE, several other organizations in the special education field wondered how the Education Department would support special education services across the country with such a limited staff.

    “The rumored near elimination of the Office for Special Education Programs is absolutely devastating to the education of people with disabilities,” said Chad Rummel, executive director of the Council for Exceptional Children, in an email on Saturday.

    Rummel said OSEP’s oversight, technical assistance and accountability efforts are critical to supporting the implementation of IDEA, which celebrates its 50th anniversary next month. About 8.4 million infants, toddlers, children and young adults received services under IDEA in 2023.

    “Eliminating federal capacity to support IDEA is harmful to people with disabilities, their families, and the professionals who serve them, and it runs counter to everything our members work toward every day,” he said.

    Myrna Mandlawitz, policy and legislative consultant for the Council of Administrators of Special Education, said on Sunday that the OSEP staff reductions will put an “extreme burden on states and locals that are already really stretched.”

    IDEA, Mandlawitz noted, is implemented collectively by local, state and federal agencies. The federal staff reductions take away “one very vital piece of the partnership. It’s just hard to understand how it can possibly function,” she said.

    Promises to protect special education

    The RIFs came two weeks into the federal government shutdown that began Oct. 1 as Congress remains at a funding impasse for fiscal year 2026. During the shutdown, the Education Department planned to furlough about 95% of its non-Federal Student Aid staff for the first week, according to a Sept. 28 memo from U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon.

    Federal staff are not paid during a government shutdown, but typically receive retroactive compensation. However, there are reports that the Trump administration may try to withhold back pay for this current shutdown, according to the American Federation of Government Employees, a union representing over 820,000 workers in nearly every agency of the federal government.

    McMahon said in the memo that school systems could still draw down federal grants awarded over the summer and processing would continue for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. Title I and IDEA grants would be distributed as well.

    However, the agency is pausing Office for Civil Rights investigations, new grant-making activities and technical assistance support during the shutdown.

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  • Students, Alumni Rally to Keep Cut Affinity Programs Alive

    Students, Alumni Rally to Keep Cut Affinity Programs Alive

    For years, Black students gathered at the University of Cincinnati’s African American Cultural and Resource Center for its traditions, including the Tyehimba Black Graduation Celebration and Akwaaba, a welcome event for new students, among other programs. This year, the AACRC, at least as it once existed, is gone. It’s been rebranded “the Cultural Center” after an Ohio law banned diversity, equity and inclusion activities at public colleges and universities in March.

    But Black students and alumni wouldn’t let the center’s traditions and resources die. Black seniors celebrated their graduations at an event held off campus. Freshmen gathered for Akwaaba, organized by students and funded by alumni, who created a foundation to sustain the AACRC’s programming. The United Black Student Association and other student groups have committed to putting on programs throughout the year that were previously handled by AACRC staff.

    “Regardless of these changes, there is no policy that can be written that can outlaw OUR spirit, OUR ability to mobilize, OUR right to congregate,” the United Black Student Association wrote on Instagram. “They cannot outlaw our ability to gather, to build, to resist, and to love. Our legacy is not theirs to give or take.”

    Amid an escalating anti-DEI movement, students, alumni and off-campus advocates are hustling to fill the gaps left by shuttered and rebranded identity centers, DEI offices and programs across the country. Students and outside organizations, like the Native Forward Scholars Fund, hosted their own affinity group graduations this year as campuses started to cancel such events. Three student clubs broke off from the University of Utah to avoid the state’s limits on public university programs, forgoing university funding. Some students and alumni involved in these efforts say they feel a renewed pressure and responsibility to provide the services colleges are shedding as institutions are caught in the crosshairs of state DEI bans and the Trump administration’s sweeping anti-DEI campaign.

    How do we make lemonade out of a lemon?”

    —Harlan Jackson, president of the Cincy Cultural Resource Center Foundation

    The Cincy Cultural Resource Center Foundation, the nonprofit founded to continue Black student programming at University of Cincinnati, was born out of that sense of duty among alumni. Some graduates involved in the effort spent years pushing for the creation of the African American Cultural and Resource Center and took pride in watching its programs expand and flourish.

    “We can’t just stand idly by and just allow something this negative and something this backward to happen at the university,” said Harlan Jackson, president of the foundation and former president of the United Black Association in the late 1980s. “I’m really proud of the diverse community that’s showing up and acknowledging that we’re going to take this on.”

    The foundation now has weekly meetings with Black student leaders to determine how best to support their needs, and alumni leaders plan to put three students on the foundation’s board. Students emphasized to alumni that continuing the center’s events and traditions is their top priority, so the foundation is funding these programs, with hopes to also fund student scholarships in the future.

    So far, alumni have raised “well over” the roughly $5,000 needed to run Akwaaba and parents’ weekend, with plans to raise half a million dollars within the academic year, said Byron Stallworth, the foundation’s secretary.

    Stallworth, who was president of the United Black Association in 1991 when the AACRC opened, said the idea of alumni and students taking the reins is catching on beyond University of Cincinnati as well—three University of Cincinnati alumni, parents of students at other colleges and universities, have asked him questions about how they could start similar efforts to sustain Black student life on their children’s campuses.

    “This is a universal problem,” he said, and alumni elsewhere “are aware of what we’re doing.”

    Jackson noted that while the rebranding of the AACRC hits close to home, programs and centers dedicated to supports for women and LGBTQ+ students have also suffered cuts because of the Ohio anti-DEI legislation.

    He hopes other Ohioans “can look to this model, and we can determine … How do we connect? How do we share? How do we learn? How do we build bridges and partnerships to continue to support the young people developing themselves in the state of Ohio?” he said. “That’s what it’s all about.”

    Pressures New and Old

    Even with such support, students fighting to keep programs alive without university backing hasn’t necessarily been easy.

    Isaac Makanda, co-head of the juvenile justice and political action committee for University of Cincinnati’s NAACP chapter, said students and alumni can’t completely make up for the loss of the African American Cultural and Resource Center. He described running into a Black first-year on campus who didn’t know about Akwaaba or other events happening for Black students on campus. He believes that’s because the new students are without a hub.

    When Makanda was a freshman, the AACRC sent out emails telling incoming Black students about events and programs, he said. This student “had no idea about any of these things that were going on because those resources were taken away from him.”

    Some student groups have also had to hustle for funding to keep their events running. The Pacific Islander Student Association, which cut ties with the University of Utah alongside the Black Student Union, lost its student group funding in the separation. PISA used to receive at least $5,000 annually from the university, so that loss was a “major hit,” said Mayette Pahulu, vice president of the group.

    But she and other student leaders felt it was worth it to have full control over their programming after Utah’s anti-DEI bill became law last year. They didn’t want to be limited by the new strictures on public universities, “whether that be talking about certain subjects, encouraging our members to have their own rights … to host socials that are specific to our heritage, cultures and ethnicities,” Pahulu said. “We would rather lose the funding than our members lose a safe space.”

    Now the group raises its own money. PISA student leaders have an ongoing GoFundMe campaign and seek out sponsors for event costs, including the nominal fees required for outside groups to host programs on campuses.

    We would rather lose the funding than our members lose a safe space.”

    —Mayette Pahulu, vice president of the Pacific Islander Student Association at the University of Utah

    Pahulu said the students’ new responsibilities have pros and cons. On one hand, she and other student leaders find themselves pushing hard, with less support, to engage students who are feeling unwelcome on campus amid changes wrought by Utah’s anti-DEI legislation. On the other hand, she believes the new connections they’ve had to make with other student groups, community organizations and businesses to sustain their work could bode well for PISA’s future.

    “Even though we’ve taken kind of the short end of the stick, having to scramble around to find these organizations, we’ve honestly started to build a bigger community and network,” she said. “I think in the long run, it will benefit us … We’re working with representatives to get these supports put in place so that the longevity and the sustainability of our organizations can outlast—no matter how drastic the changes may be politically.”

    Jackson, the University of Cincinnati alum, said in a similar vein that he’s proud to see students and alumni making the best of the raw deal they’ve been given.

    As universities strip away programs at the behest of state lawmakers, “all they’ve done is put more burden on the students,” Harlan said. At the same time, “it gives them opportunity to network with the community, more opportunity to do planning and budgeting, more opportunity to lead in terms of putting together programs and executing programs.” The question is “How do we make lemonade out of a lemon?”

    Keisha Bross, director of race and justice at the NAACP, said student organizations—like Black student unions, NAACP chapters and the group of Black sororities and fraternities known as the Divine Nine—have always provided supports and programming for Black students in areas where universities have failed to do so. These groups “stepping in” to fill unmet needs is their “legacy,” she said. But she doesn’t believe the work students are doing, and have historically done, should allow universities to “get off easy” for cutting back programs dedicated to their success.

    “We cannot allow colleges to make these really traumatic decisions that are hurting student populations and their leadership, and then just say, ‘Oh well,’” Bross said. “We need to continue to hold universities accountable, because they have a responsibility to the students that they serve. Universities have and should be providing these resources to their students, 100 percent.”



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  • Grad v. Professional Programs a Key Issue for ED Panel

    Grad v. Professional Programs a Key Issue for ED Panel

    Despite the possibility of a government shutdown next week, the Education Department is slated to begin the complicated endeavor of determining how to carry out the sweeping higher ed changes in Congress’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

    The agenda for the weeklong meeting, which kicks off Monday, includes hammering out details about loan repayment plans and how to help struggling borrowers return to good standing. The key issue on the table, though, will likely be determining how best to differentiate between graduate and professional degree programs for future borrowers.

    The terms “graduate” and “professional” were once nothing more than a trivial self-prescribed classification. But under the Republicans’ new law, they have become critical labels that could alter which college programs get more federal aid. For example, under the new plan, student borrowers in a graduate program will be limited to $20,500 per year or $100,000 total, whereas those enrolled in a professional program will be able to borrow more than double that.

    And while lawmakers on Capitol Hill gave the department a foundational definition of what qualifies as professional in the bill, it’s up to Education Under Secretary Nicholas Kent and the negotiated rule-making advisory committee to write rules that detail how that definition will work in practice. (The committee is scheduled to meet for another weeklong session in November, and only after that can the department finalize its proposal and open the floor for public comment.)

    Some university lobbyists and career associations want the department to include more programs in the professional bucket and make a comprehensive list of those that qualify. Others recommend using a broad definition and then letting institutions sort the programs. Consumer protection advocates, however, are urging the department to stick to the original, more narrow definition in an effort to prevent greater levels of student debt.

    The department’s initial proposal, released this week, stuck largely to the 10 programs cited in the existing definition but added a catch-all clause to add “any other degrees designated by the Secretary through rulemaking.”

    To Clare McCann, a former Education Department official and now managing director of policy for the Postsecondary Education and Economics Research Center at American University, the initial proposal shows that the department doesn’t quite know how it wants to define a professional program.

    “This is a really complicated issue,” she said. “So it seems clear to me that the department is planning to use this first session to gather ideas and feedback but is not planning to come to the table with a real proposal of its own.”

    Further complicating the issue, McCann and others say, it’s going to be difficult for the department to finalize its rule fast enough to give students and institutions enough time to prepare. (Currently, the new loan caps are slated to kick in as of July 1, 2026.)

    As McCann explained, the earliest colleges and universities could expect to see a proposed rule—let alone a finalized one—would be later this fall. And at that point, many prospective students have already started receiving acceptance letters.

    “There will be many people making decisions about whether and where they’re going to graduate school, and they’ll be doing that in a vacuum, without final rules about what they’ll be able to borrow and how they’re going to be able to repay it,” she said. “So this whole regulatory process is going to be an incredible time crunch.”

    Current Definitions

    The current definition of “professional,” which is laid out in the Higher Education Act of 1965, states that in order to qualify as professional a degree must signify that a student has the skills necessary beyond a bachelor’s degree in order to practice a specific profession.

    Later it adds that “professional licensure is also generally required,” and provides a short but nonexhaustive list of programs that could fit the bill, including: pharmacy, dentistry, medicine, osteopathy, law, optometry, podiatry, veterinary medicine, chiropractic medicine and theology. (That list served as the foundation for the department’s proposal.)

    Some groups, like the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, made clear in their public comments that they interpret this definition to be an intentionally “flexible” and “inclusive approach.” And based on that, they encouraged the department to maintain a broad definition and allow institutions to self-certify their programs with periodic review from the department.

    Jordan Wicker, the senior vice president of legislative and regulatory affairs at Career Education Colleges and Universities, a lobbying group for for-profit institutions, added that the economy and higher education landscape are constantly evolving—pointing to the need for a broader definition.

    “I don’t know that you want to re-regulate a comprehensive list any time curriculums or programs change,” he told Inside Higher Ed.

    Others, including the American Council on Education, agree that the interpretation should be broad but say the best way to ensure that is the case is by creating a more complete list of eligible programs. “At the very least,” ACE said in its comment letter, the list should include dozens of clinical and health science programs highlighted under an existing regulation known as financial value transparency. On top of that, it also urges the department to include about 15 additional programs, including architecture, accounting, social work, education and word languages.

    Halaevalu Vakalahi, president of the Council on Social Work Education, agreed, arguing that many programs like hers meet the current definition.

    “We’ve always identified ourselves as a profession,” she said. “There’s licensure, there’s accreditation—all of the things that we have as part of the social [work] profession are also in the list that currently exists on what is a profession.”

    But Third Way, a left-of-center think tank, drew the exact opposite conclusion, arguing that Congress intended for the definition to be stringent and address “unnecessary student debt.” (Graduate student debt accounts for nearly half of the student loan portfolio, raising concerns for lawmakers and advocates.)

    “While this list is not exclusive, Congress did not indicate that it intended to include any other fields in crafting the OBBBA loan limits,” senior policy adviser Ben Cecil wrote in a recent blog post about the distinction. “By codifying this list as written, the Department can best enforce the legislative intent of ensuring that students aren’t overborrowing for graduate school and have manageable debt compared to their program’s earnings.”

    High-Stakes Talks

    With the different proposals on the table, those interviewed agreed that it will be rather difficult for the committee to reach consensus. If the committee doesn’t reach an agreement, the department is free to interpret the definition cited in OBBBA however it wants.

    McCann from PEER, who worked at the department during the Obama and Biden administrations, said that until she starts to see the debate play out, it’s hard to know which approach will win. But no matter what, she added it will likely be an uphill climb.

    “It’s a challenging issue for negotiators, and there are a lot of competing interests with pretty high stakes attached,” she said. So “this is going to be a difficult committee on which to get that kind of agreement.”

    Todd Jones, president of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Ohio and a former Republican staffer in the department, said that he expects the Trump administration will lean toward a more narrow definition if the committee doesn’t reach consensus. At that point, he added, it will be up to the individual types of programs to lobby for why they should be added to the list.

    “The question is, what has the administration already decided that they are going to give on?” Jones said. “And the things I’ve heard while I was in D.C. over the past few months indicate that there may not be support for some of these social science higher degrees being considered professions and instead simply being considered master’s.”

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  • Explore the earnings for graduates of beauty schools, other certificate programs

    Explore the earnings for graduates of beauty schools, other certificate programs

    Schools that train hairstylists, dental assistants and health aides will be able to keep getting federal student loan dollars even if the professionals they turn out don’t end up earning any more than a high school graduate.

    That’s because programs like those, which don’t end in a college degree, were granted an exemption from new accountability measures under President Donald Trump’s ”big, beautiful bill.” 

    A Hechinger Report analysis of federal data found at least 1,280 such certificate programs could have been at risk of their students losing access to federal student loans — but a successful lobbying effort excluded them from the accountability measures. 

    Related: Become a lifelong learner. Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter featuring the most important stories in education. 

    Under the new law, most graduates of associate, bachelor’s and graduate degree programs must earn at least as much as someone who has only a high school diploma. If programs fail to hit that benchmark for two out of three years, their students will no longer be eligible for federal student loans. (And the schools must warn students of this possibility if they miss the mark for just one year). Without that borrowing power, many students could not afford to attend. And without those students, some of the schools might not survive. 

    Using the table below, see which certificate programs might have been flagged under the Trump law if not for the exemption. If graduates of a particular program ended up earning less than adults with only a high school diploma, that program could have faced losing eligibility for federal student loans under the Trump law.

    Methodology

    What exactly does the “big, beautiful bill” call for?

    The legislation requires the Department of Education to compare earnings of working adults who have only a high school diploma to the earnings of adults four years after they complete a degree program or graduate certificate. If a postsecondary program’s graduates fail to outearn adults with only high school degrees for two out of three years, students can no longer obtain federal student loans to attend that program. 

    The law also sets up an appeals process and a way for programs to apply to regain eligibility for federal student loans.

    What data was analyzed? 

    The law directs the education secretary to use census data to calculate median earnings for working adults with only a high school degree in the state where a program is located. The Department of Education will release regulations that spell out exactly how to do that math. For example, the law does not spell out whether it will look at census data averaged out over 12 months or a longer period of time. 

    For earnings data for high school graduates, The Hechinger Report relied on calculations from the Department of Education, which were derived from the 2022 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates Public Use Microdata Sample from the U.S. Census Bureau.

    To calculate median earnings for graduates, the law directs the Education Department to put together earnings data for a cohort of at least 30 graduates who received federal student aid for postsecondary education — which typically includes grants, loans or work-study. Graduates are excluded if they’re currently enrolled in another higher education program. If there are fewer than 30 students in a cohort, the Education Department can lump together several years of data to get to 30 students.

    To get earnings data for graduates of certificate programs, Hechinger used a federal database known as College Scorecard. We downloaded field of study data for the 2022-23 school year. From this data, The Hechinger Report extracted information about certificate programs, at their main campuses, and included only programs that had median earnings data. The federal database suppresses earnings data for small programs. That left 4,431 currently operating certificate programs. 

    How was a program determined to be at possible risk of failing the accountability measure?

    For each program, The Hechinger Report compared median graduate earnings to the high school graduate earnings data of the state where the program was located. If the graduates earned less, the program was considered to be at risk.  

    Under the law, postsecondary programs that don’t meet the earnings benchmark for one year have to inform all current students that they are at risk of losing their eligibility for federal student loans. 

    Are there any limitations to the data? 

    The “big, beautiful bill” takes online programs into account by considering whether students live in the same state where their academic program is based. Under the law, student earnings are compared with national data rather than state data when fewer than half of enrolled students live in the state where the school is located, which may be the case for online programs. 

    The Hechinger Report’s analysis instead compares every program with state earnings. That’s because the College Scorecard field of study data set is limited and only includes information about graduates employed within the same state as the institution, not whether enrolled students live in the same state as the program. In addition, College Scorecard data provides earnings data for all graduates without a breakdown for whether they receive federal aid.

    Also, the Hechinger database looks at the available median earnings of all students four years after graduation for the school year 2022-23, regardless of the number of graduates. Though College Scorecard suppresses data on smaller programs, median earnings data is available for programs with 16 or more working graduates. The “big, beautiful bill” directs the Department of Education to instead lump together years of data to create cohorts of at least 30 students.

    Contact investigative reporter Marina Villeneuve at 212-678-3430 or [email protected] or on Signal at mvilleneuve.78

    This story about beauty schools was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

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  • Cosmetology schools and other certificate programs got exemption from rules on graduates’ earning levels

    Cosmetology schools and other certificate programs got exemption from rules on graduates’ earning levels

     

    Remiah Ward’s shift at the SmartStyle salon inside Walmart was almost over, and she’d barely made $30 in tips from the haircuts she’d done that day. It wasn’t unusual — a year after her graduation from beauty school, tips plus minimum wage weren’t enough to cover her rent.

    She scarcely had time to eat and sleep before she had to drive back to the same Walmart in central Florida to stock shelves on the night shift. That job paid $14 an hour, but it meant she sometimes spent 18 hours a day in the same building. She worked six days a week but still struggled to catch up on bills and sleep. 

    The admissions officer at the American Institute of Beauty, where she enrolled straight out of high school, had sold her on a different dream. She would easily earn enough to pay back the $10,000 she borrowed to attend, she said she was told. Ward had no way of knowing that stylists from her school earn $20,200 a year, on average, four years after graduating. Seven years later, her debt, plus interest, is still unpaid.

    In July, Republicans in Congress pushed through policies aimed at ensuring that what happened to Ward wouldn’t happen to other Americans on the government’s dime; colleges whose graduates don’t earn at least as much as someone with a high school diploma will now risk losing access to federal student loans. But one group managed to slip through the cracks — thousands of schools like the American Institute of Beauty were exempt. 

    Remiah Ward worked two jobs while trying to make it as a hair stylist but never made enough to pay her all her bills and has had to put her dream career on hold. Credit: Courtesy Remiah Ward

    Certificate schools succeeded in getting a carve-out. The industry breathed a collective sigh of relief, and with good reason. At least 1,280 certificate-granting programs, which enrolled more than 220,000 students, would have been at risk of losing federal student loan funding if they had been included in the bill, according to a Hechinger Report analysis of federal data. [See table.] About 80% of those are for-profit programs, and 45 percent are cosmetology schools.

    “There is this very strange donut hole in accountability where workforce programs are held accountable, two-year degree programs are held accountable, but everything in between gets off without any accountability,” said Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute.

    The schools spared are known as certificate programs and, with their promise of an affordable and relatively quick path to economic security, are the fastest growing part of higher education. They usually take about a year to complete and train people to be hair-stylists, welders, medical assistants and cooks, among other jobs.

    As with traditional colleges, there are big differences in quality among certificate programs. Some hair stylists can make a middle-class living if they work in a busy salon. But for people who have to pay back hefty student loans, the low wages for stylists in the early years can be an insurmountable obstacle.

    Ward found herself facing that dilemma. When she could no longer sustain the lack of sleep from her double shifts at Walmart, she pressed pause on her styling career and took a job with Amazon, loading and unloading planes. She wasn’t ready to give up her dream career, though, so in addition to her 10-hour days moving boxes, she took part-time gigs at local hair salons. She didn’t have family to help pay rent, not to mention loan payments, so she couldn’t afford to work fulltime at a salon, which is essential to build up a regular clientele — and bigger tips. Without that, she couldn’t get much beyond minimum wage. 

    A representative from the American Institute of Beauty denied that Ward was told she would easily repay her loan.

    “No admissions representative, not at AIB or elsewhere, would ever make such a statement,” Denise Herman, general counsel and assistant vice president of AIB, said in an email. 

    The high cost of many for-profit cosmetology schools — tuition can be upward of $20,000, usually for a one-year program  — can leave former students mired in debt. In May, the government released data showing 850 colleges where at least a third of borrowers haven’t made a loan payment for 90 days or more, putting them on track to default. About 42 percent of those were for-profit cosmetology and barbering schools (including AIB).

    Brittany Mcnew says she loves working as a stylist but that her income takes a hit when traffic is slow in her salon in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Credit: Meredith Kolodner/The Hechinger Report

    Herman blamed the Biden administration policy that after the pandemic let borrowers forgo payments without any penalty.

    “Debtors became ‘comfortable’ not making payments,” said Herman. “AIB provides the graduate with the information graduates need to make their payments. What that graduate decides to pay, or not pay, is not influenced by AIB.”

    Under the “big beautiful bill” passed in July, two- and four-year colleges must ensure that, after four years, graduates on average make at least as much as someone in their state who has only a high school diploma. The colleges must inform students if they fail that test, and if it happens for two out of three years, the college will be ineligible to receive federal loan funds.

    Some for-profit certificate schools lobbied hard for an exemption. The American Association of Career Schools, which represents proprietary cosmetology schools, spent $120,000 lobbying the Education Department and Congress, including on the “big beautiful bill,” in the first six months of this year. At the group’s major lobbying event in April, Sen. Bill Cassidy, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, was the keynote speaker.

    Cassidy declined to answer questions about why certificate programs were excluded, but a fact sheet from his committee noted that they are already covered by something else, the gainful employment rule, which is also being challenged by the for-profit cosmetology industry.

    That federal gainful employment regulation, updated in 2023, requires in essence that graduates from career-oriented schools earn enough to be able to pay back their loans and earn more than a high school graduate. It also requires that consumers, like Ward, be given more information about how graduates from all colleges fare in the workplace.

    The rule posed an existential threat to a huge swath of cosmetology schools.

    In 2023, the American Association of Career Schools sued to block the gainful employment rule. 

    “AACS supports fair and reasonable accountability measures,” Cecil Kidd, the AACS’s executive director, said in an email. “However, we strongly object to arbitrary or discriminatory policies such as the US Department of Education’s Gainful Employment rule, which unfairly targets career schools while exempting many public and private non-profit institutions that fail to meet comparable outcomes.”

    He pointed to public comments in which AACS has argued that the rule imposes an unfair burden on cosmetology schools since stylists are predominantly women, who are more likely to have “personal commitments” that affect their earnings, and who rely on tips that are often pocketed as unreported income.

    Cameron Vandenboom is a successful hair stylist but says the high cost of her private beauty school wasn’t worth thousands of dollars in student debt: “I absolutely should have gone to community college.” Credit: Courtesy Shanna Kaye Photo

    In a twist that surprised advocates on both sides, the Education Department in May asked the court to effectively dismiss AACS’ lawsuit. 

    If the court rules in favor of the cosmetology schools, certificate programs will be free of all accountability requirements on their graduates’ earning levels, because they got the carveout in July. 

    Even if the court rules against cosmetology schools, advocates are pessimistic that the Trump administration will implement the gainful rules. The first Trump administration got rid of the original rules back in 2019 and Nicholas Kent, now the U.S. undersecretary of education, was previously the chief policy officer for Career Education Colleges and Universities, or CECU, the trade group that represents for-profit colleges, including certificate programs. He is a well-known critic of the rule.

    “I would be very surprised, if the unlikely scenario plays out that the Biden rule is upheld, that this Department of Education would just say, OK, the court has spoken,” said Jason Altmire, CECU’s executive director. “We are not opposed to accountability for certificate programs, so long as it’s fair to everybody and we have a voice in how you’re measuring programs.”  

    Altmire said CECU didn’t lobby for certificate programs to be carved out of Congress’ bill, but did argue against the earnings formula that Congress landed on. Altmire said it doesn’t take into account part-time work and the gender gap in wages.

    One objection from AACS, raised by CECU as well, is that the earnings measured don’t include tips, which are crucial to hair stylists’ income. Analyzed without including tips, 576 of 724 cosmetology schools in the Hechinger Report analysis would fail Congress’ earnings test. But even if tips were included and raised stylists’ income by 20 percent, 526 cosmetology schools would still fail.

    Earlier this year, Remiah Ward made the difficult decision to leave Florida and move to Kentucky, where the cost of living was more forgiving. She’s working from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. at an aluminum factory for $19.50 an hour. 

    One day, she might go back to styling after her debt is paid off. Like many former beauty school students, she wishes she’d had more information when she decided to enroll.

    “They really sugar-coated it. I was 18 years old, and I needed a trade that I was already pretty good at,” said Ward, who is now 26. “Everybody thinks they’re going to make a high return, and it’s just not the reality.”

    Marina Villeneuve contributed data analysis to this story. 

    This story about cosmetology schools produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger higher-education newsletter.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

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  • Southern Oregon University to cut 23 programs and lay off 18 employees

    Southern Oregon University to cut 23 programs and lay off 18 employees

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    Dive Brief:

    • Southern Oregon University will eliminate 10 bachelor’s degrees, 12 minors and one graduate program in the face of long-term structural budget deficits after a vote by the institution’s board.
    • The public university will also lay off 18 employees and cut roughly three dozen other jobs through retirements, the elimination of vacant positions and other methods. SOU will shift 17 jobs off its payroll by funding them through alternative sources, such as the SOU Foundation, a nonprofit affiliated with the university.
    • The cuts are intended to stabilize SOU following years “marked by unprecedented fiscal crises,” according to the plan approved by trustees last week in a 7-2 vote.

    Dive Insight:

    SOU has faced a quartet of problems plaguing other higher education institutions — declining enrollment, flat state funding, rising costs and a shifting federal policy landscape.

    The university’s full-time equivalent enrollment fell almost 22% from 4,108 students in 2015 to 3,209 in 2024, according to state data. 

    “It is also highly likely that the federal government’s intent to dismantle support systems for low-income students also will have a devastating impact,” the plan noted.

    Earlier this year, the Trump administration sought to reduce funding to certain need-based student aid programs and eliminate others altogether, such as the Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant program. Since then, both chambers of Congress have rejected some of those overtures in their own budget proposals for fiscal year 2026, though House lawmakers likewise pitched eliminating FSEOG. 

    At the state level, Oregon’s fiscal 2025-27 budget raised funding for its public universities slightly. But SOU argued that the bump fails to cover increasing costs outside of its control, such as retirement and medical benefits.

    In June, SOU’s board of trustees directed the university to find $5 million in savings by the end of fiscal 2026.

    In response, University President Rick Bailey planned more significant cuts to set SOU up for longer-term stability. He declared financial exigency at the beginning of August, paving the way for a dramatic restructuring at the institution.

    The plan pitched to SOU’s board Friday will cut more than $10 million from the university’s annual educational and general budget over the next four years, bringing it down to approximately $60 million total.

    Academically, the proposal will sunset “low-enrolled or less regionally relevant programs” to focus on “what SOU does best for the majority of students,” it said.

    Following the reduction, the university will offer a total of 30 majors and 19 minors meant to lead students toward interdisciplinary programs “aligned with regional workforce demands.”

    “SOU is no longer a comprehensive university,” the plan said. “We cannot continue to provide all the programs and supports as we have in the past.”

    Bachelor’s degrees slated for elimination include international studies, chemistry, Spanish and multiple mathematics programs. It will also cut a graduate leadership degree focused on outdoor expeditions.

    Some programs originally considered for elimination — such as creative writing and economics — will go on with restructured curricula and face additional review in coming years. 

    The plan will also restructure SOU’s honors college and eliminate direct funding for its annual creativity conference.

    During Friday’s meeting, board member Debra Fee Jing Lee supported the cuts, arguing SOU‘s strength moving forward will be based on its ability “to be lean and agile and entrepreneurial.”​​

    Board member Elizabeth Shelby similarly voted for the proposal.

    “It’s incumbent upon us to plan as we must for the next several years, even if that requires additional cuts,” she said.

    But Hala Schepmann, a board member and chair of SOU’s chemistry and physics department, opposed the plan, calling it “the nuclear option.”

    “Do we need to make immediate cuts? Yes,” she said. “But taking away key foundational components of our institution will make it harder for us to make progress.”

    Schepmann also took issue with deciding on the plan amid “significant fluctuations” in the university’s projected budget.

    This summer, SOU lowered projections for its expected revenue by $1.9 million after an internal analysis found “a multi-decade issue” of double-counting some online education tuition revenue.

    The workforce reduction comes just two years after SOU eliminated nearly 82 full-time positions through a combination of layoffs, unfilled vacancies, voluntary reductions and retirements. 

    That wave of cuts left the remaining employees “feeling as though they were asked to do more with less,” according to the proposal. It argued that the new round of cuts will address this issue by paring down programs in tandem with shrinking the workforce.

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  • New Promise Programs Launch for Families Making Under $100K

    New Promise Programs Launch for Families Making Under $100K

    When Jake Winston began looking at colleges in fall 2019, he was primarily looking at public colleges in his home state of North Carolina, as he felt those would be the only institutions he could afford. He was interested in Washington & Lee University, in Virginia, due to its location—far enough for a change of scenery, but not so far he couldn’t visit home—and its rich and complex history. But he didn’t think he could afford the high price tag.

    At a presentation by admissions officials, though, he learned about the W&L Promise, which covers the full cost of tuition for all students whose families fall into a specific income bracket. Once he got his aid offers back from colleges, WLU was the obvious choice, costing him just $5,000 annually, a sum that he paid out of pocket using money he made from summer research jobs.

    “Being able to know I was going to graduate debt-free from the start allowed me to pick what I was passionate in, and that’s teaching, which is not the highest-paying role in the country,” said Winston, who now teaches seventh-grade history in Northern Virginia. “But it is what I wanted to do with my life.”

    WLU has one of the oldest tuition-guarantee programs in the country. It launched in 2014, offering free tuition to students whose families make less than $75,000 each year; now, that number has surged up to $150,000, and students whose family income is less than $75,000 also get free room and board.

    Since then, more and more colleges—especially, but not only, selective private institutions—are offering completely free tuition to students whose families fall under a certain income threshold. Nowadays, that maximum is typically $100,000 annually, an income bracket that includes about 57 percent of U.S. families as of 2024, according to an analysis by the Motley Fool. But some have expanded the offer of free tuition to those whose families make as much as $200,000, encompassing all but 16 percent of American households. (Most programs also require the families to have typical assets, and some are only open to in-state students.)

    In the past year alone, a slew of universities has announced new free tuition programs or expanded their existing programs, including Wake Forest University, Reed College, Emory University, Macalester College, Tufts University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University and Lasell University.

    Administrators at more than half a dozen institutions with promise programs told Inside Higher Ed that they hope that the move will attract low-income students who didn’t realize how financially accessible higher education, even at expensive institutions, can be. It’s also an effort to improve cost transparency—an area that has frequently come under scrutiny as the actual cost of college has become increasingly obscured by scholarships, aid, fees and books and other indirect costs.

    Breaking the Cost Barrier

    For many institutions offering tuition guarantees—also called promise programs—it’s more of a change in rhetoric than in actual financial aid policy.

    Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, for example, announced a program last November guaranteeing free tuition for students with family incomes under $75,000 and promising those with incomes under $100,000 wouldn’t have to take out any student loans to access a CMU education, beginning with the incoming class in fall 2025. But according to Brian Hill, the university’s associate vice provost for student financials and enrollment systems, that’s how the university had already been quietly operating since 2016.

    “In truth, it was to make sure that prospective students knew that CMU was an affordable option for them. That was the primary reason,” he said. “We’ve been saying that we met full demonstrated financial need for our students … [but] a barrier we don’t know if we’d gotten through or not is students that would look at the sticker price [of $67,020 per year] and just completely write CMU off before they even explored it.”

    The surge of these programs comes amid concerns about the growing cost of higher education and that the return on investment of a bachelor’s degree doesn’t warrant the seemingly exorbitant cost; a few institutions in the U.S. now have a sticker price upward of $100,000 a year.

    At the same time, experts argue that the price of higher education has actually gone down when accounting for inflation and the high rate of aid students generally receive. For several decades, higher education has followed a model in which institutions advertise a high cost of attendance but a significant number of students receive large scholarships. This approach helps to make higher education look like a luxury product while students and families feel like they’re getting a good deal. But that strategy has come to bite institutions in the butt, according to W. Joseph King, former president of Lyon College and a higher education consultant, as many low- and middle-income students now feel the high cost of college makes an education unattainable.

    “What this led to was almost like an arms race of rising stated tuition numbers and a fall in net tuition numbers. All sorts of groups, including the federal government, have been trying to get to numbers that are more reflective of the actual cost,” he said.

    Promise programs aim to change that narrative by showing low- and middle-income families that getting an education even at a seemingly pricey school can be achievable.

    Colleges have made other attempts to communicate that message to students and parents. That includes developing net price calculators, which often show that low-income students would be paying just a fraction of the sticker price, or announcing that their institution is able to meet all of a student’s demonstrated financial need—a number based on a federal student aid formula that determines how much a family is able to pay.

    But many families have no idea what demonstrated financial need means or are unaware of net price calculators, enrollment professionals say. Simply saying that an institution offers free tuition can be the ultimate tool for price transparency, according to Milyon Trulove, vice president and dean of admission and financial aid at Reed College, which announced plans to expand its regional promise program—currently available only to students in Oregon and Washington—to all students with family incomes under $100,000 in 2026.

    The institution also has a net price calculator, he said. But if presented with both that calculator and the promise of free tuition, the latter will immediately be meaningful to students, whereas the former won’t.

    “[Students] say, ‘This makes sense to me, today, right now … and now I can listen to all the other stuff about fit and anxiety about money is no longer in the way of me fully participating in the college admission process,’” he said.

    Along with institutions offering free tuition to any student who fits within a certain income bracket, even more institutions offer tuition guarantees to students based on grade point average or for transferring from a local community college system.

    ‘Rigorous Financial Planning’

    Most of the university officials who spoke with Inside Higher Ed said that their institution was in a very strong financial position and able to afford to support so many students because of large endowments and generous donations, including fundraising specifically aimed at increasing student aid.

    From 2016 to 2024, Carnegie Mellon, for example, increased its undergraduate financial aid budget 86 percent.

    “We truly made a massive commitment to making affordability a real thing at CMU,” said Hill. “I think we’re in a very positive position in terms of finances, but it took a lot of commitment from … executive leadership to make this a priority.”

    Wake Forest, which announced last week that it will offer free tuition to all North Carolina students with family incomes below $200,000, is one of the few schools that said that its promise program, called the North Carolina Gateway, would substantially increase the total amount of aid it gives out. President Susan Wente said that, similarly to CMU, the funds for the initiative come in large part from a massive fundraising effort that has raised over $150 million for financial aid since 2022.

    “This involved rigorous financial planning and analysis and knowing we could meet the commitment, should we announce it,” she said.

    But not every university with a promise program is leaning on massive donation campaigns. Radford University, a public institution in Virginia, was able to begin offering free tuition to all students from Virginia with incomes below $100,000 simply because of the ample amount of funding it gets from the state, according to Dannette Gomez Beane, vice president for enrollment management and strategic communication.

    Virginia tends to be generous toward higher education, Beane said, but the two regional public universities in southwest Virginia, which has the lowest college-going rate of higher education of any area in the state, receive the most funding. That’s what allowed Radford to begin its promise program, which the institution promoted heavily in the 60-mile radius around its campus, in 2024.

    “With all things higher ed and higher ed financial aid, not everything is sure, and we’re learning that this year more than ever,” she said. “I think that state funding, federal funding—if you have models that are dependent on those, you have to constantly be adjusting your models … there is that vulnerability, but we’re just gracious that we’ve had favor with the state.”

    Boosting Low-Income Enrollment

    Although many of these programs are new, those that have been around for multiple years have seen positive results. At Washington & Lee, Sally Richmond, vice president for admissions and financial aid, said that there have been massive jumps in enrollment of rural students, first-generation students and Pell-eligible students since she joined the university in 2016.

    It’s impossible to say whether those changes can be attributed specifically to the university’s promise program, she noted. But, she said, “our financial aid office, who is certainly on the front line of having these conversations along with our admissions team, speaks to the fact that this concept of the promise is the one that resonates most with our prospective students and families.”

    Reed College, similarly, saw a 25 percent increase in middle-income students in its program’s first year, during which it was only available to students from Oregon and Washington.

    Wente, Wake Forest’s president, said she is eager to see how the university’s newly announced tuition guarantee program will impact low- and middle-income enrollment.

    “As a scientist myself, we’re going to pilot this, look at its impact, look at how we can ensure that it’s really achieving what we hope in terms of offering students greater access,” she said. “In terms of the middle and lower income bands, those are the students who often don’t have as many options. So, how do we give them as many options as possible?”

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  • Trump Administration Withholds Millions for TRIO Programs

    Trump Administration Withholds Millions for TRIO Programs

    Normally, back-to-school season means that the staff who lead federally funded programs for low-income and first-generation college students are kicking into high gear. But this month, the Trump administration has frozen hundreds of millions of dollars in TRIO grants, creating uncertainty for thousands of programs. Some have been forced to grind to a halt, advocates say.

    Colleges and nonprofits that had already been approved for the award expected to hear by the end of August that their federal funding was on its way. But rather than an award notice, program leaders received what’s known as a “no cost extension,” explaining that while programs could continue to operate until the end of the month, they would not be receiving the award money. 

    Over all, the Council for Opportunity in Education, a nonprofit advocacy group that focuses on supporting TRIO programs, estimates that the Trump administration has withheld about $660 million worth of aid for more than 2,000 TRIO programs. (Congress allocated $1.19 billion to TRIO for the current fiscal year.) 

    As a result of the freeze, COE explained, many colleges and nonprofit organizations had to temporarily pivot to online services or shutter their programs and furlough staff. Roughly 650,000 college students and high school seniors will lack vital access to academic advising, financial guidance and assistance with college applications if the freeze persists, they say.

    “For many students, these first few weeks of the year are going to set the trajectory for their whole semester, especially if you’re an incoming freshman,” said COE president Kimberly Jones. “This is when you’re making critical choices about your coursework, trying to navigate the campus and just trying to acclimate to this new world. If you’re first-gen, you need the guidance of a program to help you navigate that.”

    Jones said that Education Department officials said this week that the pause is temporary. However, the Department of Education did not immediately respond to Inside Higher Ed’s request for comment Friday.

    TRIO Under Threat

    Originally established in the 1960s, TRIO now consists of seven different programs, each designed to support various individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds and help them overcome barriers of access to higher education.  

    Not all the TRIO programs have had funding withheld. Roughly 1,300 awards for certain programs—such as Upward Bound Math-Science, Student Support Services and any general Upward Bound projects with a June 1 start date—were disbursed on time, Jones said. But that’s only 40 percent of the more than 3,000 TRIO programs.  

    Other programs, including Upward Bound projects with a Sept. 1 start date, Veterans Upward Bound, Educational Opportunity Centers and Talent Search, are still waiting for checks to land in their accounts.

    Policy experts added that funding for the McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement program, a TRIO service focused on graduate students, also has yet to be distributed. But unlike most of the programs, funding for McNair is not due until Sept. 30. Still, Jones and others said they are highly concerned those funds will also be frozen.

    Given the unpredictability of everything this year around education, we can’t make any assumptions. Until we get those grants in the hands of our constituents, we have to assume the worst.”

    —COE president Kimberly Jones

    President Donald Trump proposed cutting all funding for TRIO in May, saying that the executive branch lacks the ability to audit the program and make sure it isn’t wasting taxpayer dollars. But so far, House and Senate appropriators have pushed back, keeping the funding intact. 

    When confronted by Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican and longtime TRIO advocate, at a budget hearing in June, McMahon acknowledged that “Congress does control the purse strings,” but went on to say that she would “sincerely hope” to work with lawmakers and “renegotiate” the program’s terms. 

    And while advocates hope that funds will eventually be reinstated, most experts interviewed remain skeptical. With 18 days left until the end of the fiscal year, any unallocated TRIO funds will likely be sent back to the Department of Treasury, never to reach the organizations they were intended for. 

    The Trump administration has tried to freeze or end other education-related grant programs—including a few TRIO programs that were cut off in June—which officials said “conflict with the Department’s policy of prioritizing merit, fairness, and excellence in education; undermine the well-being of the students these programs are intended to help; or constitute an inappropriate use of federal funds.”

    And while some of the funding freezes have been successfully challenged in court, the judicial process needed to win back federal aid is slow. Most colleges don’t have that kind of time, the advocates say.

    “Given the unpredictability of everything this year around education, we can’t make any assumptions,” Jones said. “Until we get those grants in the hands of our constituents, we have to assume the worst.”

    ‘Crippling’ Effects 

    For Summer Bryant, director of the Talent Search program at Morehead State University in Kentucky, the funding freeze has been “crippling.”

    Talent Search is a TRIO program focused on supporting middle and high school students with college preparation. And while the loss of about $1 million hasn’t forced Bryant to shut down her program quite yet, it has significantly limited her capacity to serve students.

    After paying the program’s 10 staff members for the month of September, Bryant has just over $1,000 left—and that’s between both of the grants she received last year.

    “It may sound like a lot, but when you take into account that we’re providing services to eight counties and 27 target schools, coupled with the fact that driving costs about 50 cents a mile and some of our schools one-way are almost 120 miles away, that’s not a lot of money,” she said. “So instead, I had to make a Facebook post notifying our students and their guardians that we would be pausing all in-person services until we receive our grant awards.”

    Even then, Morehead TRIO programs are based in a rural part of Appalachia, so broadband access and choppy connections are also a concern. 

    “Doing things over the phone or over a Zoom is just not as effective as doing it face-to-face—information is lost,” Bryant said. And because this freeze is happening during the most intensive season for college applications, “even a one month delay could lead to a make-or-break moment for a lot of our seniors,” she added.

    It’s not just Bryant facing these challenges. Of Morehead’s nine preapproved TRIO grants, only four have been awarded. The same scenario is playing out at campuses across the country.

    Democratic senators Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Raphael Warnock of Georgia, along with 32 other lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, demanded in a letter sent Wednesday that the administration release the funds. Collectively, they warned that failure to do so “will result in irreversible damage to our students, families, and communities, as many rely on the vital programs and services provided by TRIO programs.”

    They wrote that TRIO has produced over six million college graduates since its inception in 1964, promoting a greater level of civic engagement and spurring local economies. 

    “The data proves that TRIO works,“ the senators stressed. “Students’ futures will be less successful if they do not receive their appropriated funds immediately.” 

    Rep. Gwen Moore, a Wisconsin Democrat and TRIO alumna, and 53 fellow House members sent a similar letter the same day.

    The freeze is hitting community colleges particularly hard; they receive half of all TRIO grants, said David Baime, senior vice president for government relations at the American Association of Community Colleges.

    Baime said he has “no idea” why the department is withholding funds and added that while he is hopeful the federal dollars will be restored, there is an “unusual degree of uncertainty.”

    Between a handful of TRIO grants that were terminated with little to no explanation earlier in the year and the recent decision to cancel all grant funding for minority-serving institutions, worries among TRIO programs are high, Jones from COE and others said.

    Still, Baime is holding out hope.

    “The department has gone on record saying that fiscal year 2025 TRIO funds would be allocated,” he said. “So despite the very concerning delays, we remain optimistic.”

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  • Good Marketing Won’t Fix Unpopular Programs

    Good Marketing Won’t Fix Unpopular Programs

    In full disclosure, I work in higher education marketing. But I’m here to say: Marketing can’t fix a bad program. OK, maybe “bad” is too strong of a word, but degree programs that aren’t aligned to the modern learner’s needs and expectations — or the job market — can be challenging. Let’s discuss.

    For this article, we’ll primarily focus on adult online learners. And these prospective students are very different from those coming right out of high school. According to Common App, first-time college students apply to about six different colleges, on average. The online learner typically inquires with only two institutions, according to an EducationDynamics report, and 45% apply to just one.

    What does this mean for schools with online programs? You have to get in front of your target audience quickly and make your case clearly. But if you don’t have the right mix of features or programs for these students, it doesn’t matter if your marketing is excellent.

    Give Online Learners What They Need 

    Online learners typically work at least part time and often full time. They have different needs and expectations for their higher education experience. They need flexibility. They also don’t want to be in school longer than necessary. Most are earning a degree to improve their career options. 

    Below are a few things to consider when formatting your programs and processes for online students.

    Efficiency 

    Once online learners have decided to take the step of applying, they’re committed and want to get started quickly. According to the EducationDynamics report, 80% enroll in the school that admits them first, and more than 50% expect to begin courses within a month of being admitted. 

    That means admissions teams have to move quickly and the programs must offer multiple start dates per year. If you make prospective students wait, you lose out. Delays can make an otherwise good program fall into the “bad” category.

    This one can be challenging. You need enough students to merit multiple start dates. That’s where that good marketing comes in!

    Relevant Skills

    Online learners choose online because they’re working and need a flexible school schedule to accommodate their work and personal commitments. But let’s focus on the work part here. These students need skills and credentials that will boost their earnings and opportunities. That’s one of the most cited reasons for returning to school.

    So, again, the degree must match the skills students need to find work. If the only online programs you offer are in computer science, you may find that you’re wasting your marketing dollars. Yes! Computer science! In the age of artificial intelligence (AI), computer science and engineering graduates are struggling to find work. 

    Personal opinion: Liberal arts and studies will become more important if they can teach students the durable skills needed in the AI era — communication, critical thinking, and research skills.

    Clear Information

    Degree program pages and websites sometimes obscure information users need to make decisions. And we saw above how quickly online learners are making decisions and want to get started. If your program page hides costs, financial aid information, credit hours, and requirements, you’re going to drop out of their consideration set. 

    Online learners want to weigh available information and make informed decisions. Some will certainly have price sensitivity, but it’s not the only consideration, so don’t hide tuition rates and fees. The EducationDynamics report notes that “flexibility can even overcome cost, with 30% of respondents indicating they would enroll at a more expensive institution if the available format, schedule, or location were ideal.” Show your cards. Let the students make their decisions with the information available.

    If your program doesn’t meet student requirements in this area, marketing won’t make a significant impact on your enrollments.

    Be Discriminating in Your Marketing Spend

    Sometimes there are politics at play or other reasons to market or support certain programs, but when possible, be thoughtful and intentional about where you spend your marketing dollars. Because marketing can’t solve for a challenging program, you must put your budget toward programs that meet student needs, including those that meet the criteria above.

    It’s tempting to give equal shares to all programs, but unless you have an unlimited budget, that’s not the best use of your funds. 

    If you must give some marketing love to all programs, even the “bad” ones, try a brand-focused approach that connects to an all-programs page. For example, send some limited traffic to a dedicated landing page that briefly covers all available programs. That way, you’ve covered the challenged programs without dedicated resources.

    Use the remainder of your budget on programs that align with students’ needs, so you can enjoy a lower cost per enrollment. Who doesn’t love a “chase the winners” strategy?

    Need More Help?

    Archer Education has deep expertise in both of these areas: marketing and program assessments. Our Strategy and Development team can help you take an unfiltered view of your programs and processes to create a plan for future success, even as the market shifts. If you have good programs and need marketing support, we’re here for that, too.

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  • Job Descriptions – Extension Programs

    Job Descriptions – Extension Programs

    Job Description Index

    Extension Programs

    Developed with the help of volunteer leaders and member institutions across the country, The Job Descriptions Index provides access to sample job descriptions for positions unique to higher education.

    Descriptions housed within the index are aligned with the annual survey data collected by the CUPA-HR research team. To aid in the completion of IPEDS and other reporting, all position descriptions are accompanied by a crosswalk section like the one below.

    Crosswalk Example

    Position Number: The CUPA-HR position number
    BLS SOC#: Bureau of Labor Statistics occupation classification code
    BLS Standard Occupational Code (SOC) Category Name: Bureau of Labor Statistics occupation category title
    US Census Code#: U.S. Census occupation classification code
    VETS-4212 Category: EEO-1 job category title used on VETS-4212 form

    ***SOC codes are provided as suggestions only. Variations in the specific functions of a position may cause the position to better align with an alternate SOC code.

    Sample Job Descriptions

    Senior Technology Licensing Officer

    The post Job Descriptions – Extension Programs appeared first on CUPA-HR.

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