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Dive Brief:
Moody’s Ratings anticipates another tough year ahead financially for U.S. colleges as the sector navigates enrollment pressures, rising expenses and political headwinds under the Trump administration.
The ratings agency recently issued a negative outlook for the higher education sector for fiscal 2026 amid economic uncertainty and shrinking margins.
“Federal policy and a shrinking population of high school graduates create an increasingly difficult and shifting operating environment for colleges and universities,” analysts said in a report last week.
Dive Insight:
Higher ed started the year with a stable outlook overall from Moody’s.That changed less than two months after President Donald Trump retook office, when the ratings agency downgraded its 2025 outlook to negative.
In last week’s report, Moody’s analysts highlighted changes to the student loan system as potentially the most painful.
Under the spending bill, the federal government next year will begin phasing out the Grad PLUS loan program, which helps graduate students finance their programs up to the cost of attendance. The government will also cap student borrowing at $100,000 for most graduate programs, with a $200,000 limit for professional programs such as medical school.
“Institutions with large master’s degree offerings will be particularly vulnerable to shifts in student demand if prospective students are not able to fully access the private loan market,” analysts said.
All of those disruptions come on top of economic trends already pressuring the sector. Moody’s highlighted demographic challenges as the national population of high school graduates is projected to decline beginning next year.
For colleges, that means a slowdown in revenue growth. Moody’s estimates 3.5% growth overall in revenue, down from 3.8% in 2025. For smaller colleges, the 2026 increases could be even smaller — 2.5% for small public institutions and 2.7% for small privates.
Expenses, on the other hand, will grow 4.4% by Moody’s estimates.While that represents more modest inflation compared to this year’s 5.2% increase, it’s still higher than revenue growth and will eat into institutions’ margins.
Moody’s forecast that the share of private colleges with negative earnings margins (before taxes, depreciation and amortization) will increase to 16% next year. That’s compared to an estimated 12.2% in 2025 and 7.2% in 2024.
“Given the strained revenue forecast, management’s ability to control costs and identify creative operational efficiencies will take on even greater importance even at the largest and wealthiest institutions,” analysts said.
Margin pressures could lead to more early retirement buyouts, workforce cuts,benefit reductions, shared services and mergers to “address fundamental business model weakness,” they added.
American institutions occupy six of the top 10 slots on this year’s table. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is first for the second year in a row, followed by Stanford University in second, also retaining its 2025 position. The California Institute of Technology rose one spot to third place, and the University of California, Berkeley, debuts on the list in fourth position.
Duke University dropped from fifth to sixth rank this year, and the Georgia Institute of Technology appears on the list for the first time, coming in seventh.
On a country level, nearly a quarter of the top 100 institutions in the ranking are from the US, more than any other nation.
Launched in 2024 in association with Schmidt Science Fellows, the rankings were created to improve scientific excellence and collaboration across disciplines and to help universities benchmark their interdisciplinary scientific work
THE broadened the interdisciplinary scope of research for this year’s list to cover any project that comprises multiple scientific disciplines or one or more scientific disciplines combined with the social sciences, education, psychology, law, economics or clinical and health.
The U.S.’s performance in the rankings is driven by high scores for outputs metrics, which include the number and share of interdisciplinary science research publications, the citations of interdisciplinary science research, and the reputation of support for interdisciplinary teams.
“For more than 80 years, research universities have advanced our understanding of the world, leading to dramatic improvements in health, economic prosperity, and national security. That work fundamentally is done best when people ideate and collaborate without regard for disciplinary boundaries within and between scientific areas,” Ian A. Waitz, vice president for research at MIT, said in a statement.
“Scientific research that breaks down academic silos and crosses traditional disciplines is increasingly understood to be essential for the next generation of big breakthroughs and the key to solving the world’s most pressing problems,” said Phil Baty, THE’s chief global affairs officer.
“The world’s biggest challenges are highly complex and require cutting-edge knowledge and fresh ideas from a wide range of specialisms.”
Just 27 percent of undergraduates describe their mental health as above average or excellent, according to new data from Inside Higher Ed’s main annual Student Voice survey of more than 5,000 undergraduates at two- and four-year institutions.
Another 44 percent of students rate their mental health as average on a five-point scale. The remainder, 29 percent, rate it as below average or poor.
In last year’s main Student Voice survey, 42 percent of respondents rated their mental health as good or excellent, suggesting a year-over-year decline in students feeling positive about their mental health. This doesn’t translate to more students rating their mental health negatively this year, however, as this share stayed about the same. Rather, more students in this year’s sample rate their mental health as average (2025’s 44 percent versus 29 percent in 2024).
About the Survey
Student Voice is an ongoing survey and reporting series that seeks to elevate the student perspective in institutional student success efforts and in broader conversations about college.
Some 5,065 students from 260 two- and four-year institutions, public and private nonprofit, responded to this main annual survey about student success, conducted in August. Explore the data captured by our survey partner Generation Lab here and here. The margin of error is plus or minus one percentage point.
The story is similar regarding ratings of overall well-being. In 2024, 52 percent of students described their overall well-being as good or excellent. This year, 33 percent say it’s above average or excellent. Yet because last year’s survey included slightly different categories (excellent, good, average, fair and poor, instead of excellent, above average, average, below average and poor), it’s impossible to make direct comparisons.
How does this relate to other national data? The 2024-2025 Healthy Minds Study found that students self-reported lower rates of moderate to severe depressive symptoms, anxiety and more for the third year in a row—what one co-investigator described as “a promising counter-narrative to what seems like constant headlines around young people’s struggles with mental health.” However, the same study found that students’ sense of “flourishing,” including self-esteem, purpose and optimism, declined slightly from the previous year. So while fewer students may be experiencing serious mental health problems, others may be moving toward the middle from a space of thriving.
Inside Higher Ed’s leadership surveys this year—including the forthcoming Survey of College and University Student Success Administrators—also documented a gap between how well leaders think their institutions have responded to what’s been called the student mental health crisis and whether they think undergraduate mental health is actually improving. In Inside Higher Ed’s annual survey of provosts with Hanover Research, for example, 69 percent said their institution has been effective in responding to student mental health concerns, but only 40 percent said undergraduate health on their campus is on the upswing.
Provosts also ranked mental health as the No. 1 campus threat to student safety and well-being (80 percent said it’s a top risk), followed by personal stress (66 percent), academic stress (51 percent) and food and housing insecurity (42 percent). Those were all far ahead of risks such as physical security threats (2 percent) or alcohol and substance use issues (13 percent).
Among community college provosts, in particular, food and housing insecurity was the leading concern, with 86 percent naming it a top risk.
Financial insecurity can impact mental health, and both factors can affect academic success. Among 2025 Student Voice respondents who have ever seriously considered stopping out of college (n=1,204), for instance, 43 percent describe their mental health as below average or poor. Among those who have never considered stopping out (n=3,304), the rate is just 23 percent. And among the smaller group of students who have stopped out for a semester or more but re-enrolled (n=557), 40 percent say their mental health is below average or poor, underscoring that returnees remain an at-risk group for completion.
Similarly, 43 percent of students who have seriously considered stopping out rate their financial well-being as below average or poor, versus 23 percent among students who’ve never considered stopping out—the same split as the previous finding on mental health.
The association between students’ confidence in their financial literacy and their risk of dropping out is weaker, supporting the case for tangible basic needs support: Some 25 percent of respondents who have considered stopping out rate their financial literacy as below average or poor, compared to 15 percent of those who have not considered stopping out.
Angela K. Johnson, vice president for enrollment management at Cuyahoga Community College in Ohio, said her institution continuously seeks feedback from students about how their financial stability and other aspects of well-being intersect.
“What students are saying by ‘financial’ is very specific around being unhoused, food insecurity,” she said. “And part of the mental health piece is also not having the medical insurance support to cover some of those ongoing services. We do offer some of them in our counseling and psychological services department, but we only offer so many.”
All this bears on enrollment and persistence, Johnson said, “but it really is a student psychological safety problem, a question of how they’re trying to manage their psychological safety without their basic needs being met.”
A ‘Top-of-Mind Issue’
Tri-C, as Johnson’s college is called, takes a multipronged approach to student wellness, including via an app called Help Is Here, resource awareness efforts that target even dual-enrollment students and comprehensive basic needs support: Think food pantries situated near dining services, housing transition coordination, childcare referrals, utility assistance, emergency funds and more.
Faculty training is another focus. “Sometimes you see a student sleeping in your class, but it’s not because the class is boring. They may have been sleeping in their car last night,” Johnson said. “They may not have had a good meal today.”
Political uncertainty may also be impacting student wellness. The American Council on Education hosted a webinar earlier this year addressing what leaders should be thinking about with respect to “these uncertain times around student well-being,” said Hollie Chessman, a director and principal program officer at ACE. “We talked about identity, different identity-based groups and how the safe spaces and places are not as prevalent on campuses anymore, based on current legislation. So some of that is going to be impacting the mental health and well-being of our students with traditionally underrepresented backgrounds.”
Previously released results from this year’s Student Voice survey indicate that most students, 73 percent, still believe that most or nearly all of their peers feel welcomed, valued and supported on campus. That’s up slightly from last year’s 67 percent. But 32 percent of students in 2025 report that recent federal actions to limit diversity, equity and inclusion efforts have negatively impacted their experience at college. This increases to 37 percent among Asian American and Pacific Islander and Hispanic students, 40 percent among Black students and 41 percent among students of other races. It decreases among white students, to 26 percent. Some 65 percent of nonbinary students (n=209) report negative impacts. For international students (n=203), the rate is 34 percent.
The Student Voice survey doesn’t reveal any key differences among students’ self-ratings of mental health by race. Regarding gender, 63 percent of nonbinary students report below average or poor mental health, more than double the overall rate of 29 percent. In last year’s survey, 59 percent of nonbinary students reported fair or poor mental health.
In a recent ACE pulse survey of senior campus leaders, two in three reported moderate or extreme concern about student mental health and well-being. (Other top concerns were the value of college, long-term financial viability and generative artificial intelligence.)
“This is a top-of-mind issue, and it has been a top-of-mind issue for college and university presidents” since even before the pandemic, Chessman said. “And student health and well-being is a systemic issue, right? It’s not just addressed by a singular program or a counseling session. It’s a systemic issue that permeates.”
In Inside Higher Ed’s provosts’ survey, the top actions these leaders reported taking to promote mental health on their campus in the last year are: emphasizing the importance of social connection and/or creating new opportunities for campus involvement (76 percent) and investing in wellness facilities and/or services to promote overall well-being (59 percent).
Despite the complexity of the issue, Chessman said, many campuses are making strides in supporting student well-being—including by identifying students who aren’t thriving “and then working in interventions to help those students.” Gatekeeper training, or baseline training for faculty and staff to recognize signs of student distress, is another strategy, as is making sure faculty and staff members can connect students to support resources, groups and peers.
“One of the big things that we have to emphasize is that it is a campuswide issue,” Chessman reiterated.
More on Health and Wellness
Other findings on student health and wellness from this newest round of Student Voice results show:
Mental health is just one area of wellness in which many students are struggling.
Asked to rate various dimensions of their health and wellness at college, students are most likely to rate their academic fit as above average or excellent, at 38 percent. Sense of social belonging (among other areas) is weaker, with 27 percent of students rating theirs above average or excellent. One clear opportunity area for colleges: promoting healthy sleep habits, since 44 percent of students describe their own as below average or poor. (Another recent study linked poor sleep among students to loneliness.)
Many students report using unhealthy strategies to cope with stress, and students at risk of stopping out may be most vulnerable.
As for how students deal with stress at college, 56 percent report a mix of healthy strategies (such as exercising, talking to family and friends, and prioritizing sleep) and unhealthy ones (such as substance use, avoidance of responsibilities and social withdrawal). But students who have seriously considered stopping out, and those who have stopped out but re-enrolled, are less likely than those who haven’t considered leaving college to rely on mostly healthy and effective strategies.
Most students approve of their institution’s efforts to make key student services available and accessible.
Despite the persistent wellness challenge, most students rate as good or excellent their institution’s efforts to make health, financial aid, student life and other services accessible and convenient. In good news for community colleges’ efforts, two-year students are a bit more likely than their four-year peers to rate these efforts as good or excellent, at 68 percent versus 62 percent.
‘It’s Easy to Feel Isolated’
The Jed Foundation, which promotes emotional health and suicide prevention among teens and young adults, advocates a comprehensive approach to well-being based on seven domains:
Foster life skills
Promote connectedness and positive culture
Recognize and respond to distress
Reduce barriers to help-seeking
Ensure access to effective mental health care
Establish systems of crisis management
Reduce access to lethal means
At JED’s annual policy summit in Washington, D.C., this month, advocates focused on sustaining the progress that has been made on mental health, as well as on the growing influence of artificial intelligence and the role of local, state and federal legislation on mental health in the digital age. Rohan Satija, a 17-year-old first-year student at the University of Texas at Austin who spoke at the event, told Inside Higher Ed in an interview that his mental health journey began in elementary school, when his family emigrated from New Zealand to Texas.
“Just being in a completely new environment and being surrounded by a completely new group of people, I struggled with my mental health, and because of bullying and isolation at school, I struggled with anxiety and panic attacks,” he said.
Satija found comfort in books and storytelling filled with “characters whom I could relate to. I read about them winning in their stories, and it showed me that I could win in my own story.”
Satija eventually realized these stories were teaching lessons about resilience, courage and empathy—lessons he put into action when he founded a nonprofit to address book deserts in low-income and otherwise marginalized communities in Texas. Later, he founded the Vibrant Voices Project for incarcerated youth, “helping them convert their mental health struggles into powerful monologues they can perform for each other.”
Currently a youth advocacy coalition fellow at JED, Satija said that college so far presents a challenge to student mental health in its “constant pressure to perform in all facets, including academically and socially and personally. I’ve seen many of my peers that have entered college with me, and a lot of us expect freedom and growth but get quickly bogged down with how overwhelming it can be to balance coursework, jobs, living away from your family and still achieving.”
Rohan Satija, center, speaks at JED’s annual policy summit in Washington earlier this month.
He added, “This competitive environment can make small setbacks feel like failures, and I’d say perfectionism can often become kind of like a silent standard.”
Another major challenge? Loneliness and disconnection. “Even though campuses are full of people, it’s easy to feel isolated, especially as a new student, and even further, especially as a first-generation student, an immigrant or anyone far from home.”
While many students are of course excited for the transition to adulthood and “finally being free for the first time,” he explained, “it comes with a lot of invisible losses, including losing the comfort of your family and a stable routine … So I think without intentional efforts to build connection in your new college campus, a lot of students feel that their sense of belonging can erode pretty quickly.”
In this light, Satija praised UT Austin’s club culture, noting that some of the extracurricular groups he’s joined assign a “big,” or student mentor, to each new student, or “little,” driving connection and institutional knowledge-sharing. Faculty members are also good at sharing information about mental health resources, he said, including through the learning management system.
And in terms of proactive approaches to overall wellness, the campus’s Longhorn Wellness Center is effective in that it “doesn’t promote itself as this big, like, crisis response space: ‘Oh, we’re here to improve your mental health. We’re here to make your best self,’ or anything like that,” he said. “It literally just promotes itself as a chill space for student wellness. They’re always talking about their massage chairs.”
“That gets students in the door, yeah?” Satija said.
This independent editorial project is produced with the Generation Lab and supported by the Gates Foundation.
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Dive Brief:
Five years after COVID-19 shut down classrooms and shifted college admissions testing policies, the SAT and ACT are still drawing fewer students than during pre-pandemic years.
Some 1.38 million students took the ACT in 2025 compared to 1.78 million in 2019, and about 2 million students took the SAT this year versus 2.22 million in 2019, data released recently by the testing companies show.
SAT scores, meanwhile, increased only slightly from the high school class of 2024 to the class of 2025, while ACT scores stayed about level. In both cases, scores fell below those from the pre-pandemic year of 2019.
Dive Insight:
The slight uptick in SAT scores and level ACT scores for the high school graduating class of 2025 are still positive trends compared to last year, when average scores on both tests declined year-over-year compared to 2023.
Still, SAT scores were still “substantially lower than average scores prior to the pandemic,” said College Board, the organization that publishes the test. In 2025, average SAT scores were 521 in reading and writing and 508 in math. In 2019, those averages were 10 points higher for reading and writing (531) and 20 points higher for math (528).
The ACT average composite score, 19.4, also fell lower than the 2019 score of 20.7.
For ACT test-takers, 30% met three or more of the four college readiness benchmarks in English, math, reading and science. The ACT benchmarks indicate that students have a 50% chance of earning a B or better in first-year college courses of the same subject and a 75% chance of a C or better.
Meanwhile, the dip in overall test takers for both exams continues a trend that dates to at least the pandemic, when colleges shifted toward test-optional policies. For the ACT, however, the numbers began declining much earlier.
While testing experts had expected the pandemic to trigger a shift away from K-12 standardized tests, that didn’t materialize to a great degree and standardized and high-stakes testing are still core to K-12.
More than 90% of four-year colleges in the U.S. were not expected to require applicants for fall 2026 admission to submit ACT or SAT scores, according to data released in September by FairTest, a nonprofit that advocates for limiting college entrance exams. That’s over 2,000 of the nation’s bachelor-degree granting institutions.
Since fall 2020, the number of test-optional or test-free colleges have increased overall, the organization’s annual count shows.
In the meantime, FairTest said the number of institutions requiring entrance exams minimally increased — from 154 for fall 2025 admissions to 160 for fall 2026 admissions.
“While a handful of schools have reinstated testing requirements over the past two admissions cycles for a variety of institutional reasons and in response to external pressures, ACT/SAT-optional and test-blind/score-free policies remain the normal baseline in undergraduate admissions,” said FairTest Executive Director Harry Feder in a September statement. “Test-optional policies continue to dominate at national universities, state flagships, and selective liberal arts colleges.”
In an age defined by digital transformation, access to reliable, high-speed internet is not a luxury; it is the bedrock of opportunity. It impacts the school classroom, the doctor’s office, the town square and the job market.
As we stand on the cusp of a workforce revolution driven by the “arrival technology” of artificial intelligence, high-speed internet access has become the critical determinant of our nation’s economic future. Yet, for millions of Americans, this essential connection remains out of reach.
This digital divide is a persistent crisis that deepens societal inequities, and we must rally around one of the most effective tools we have to combat it: the Universal Service Fund. The USF is a long-standing national commitment built on a foundation of bipartisan support and born from the principle that every American, regardless of their location or income, deserves access to communications services.
Without this essential program, over 54 million students, 16,000 healthcare providers and 7.5 million high-need subscribers would lose internet service that connects classrooms, rural communities (including their hospitals) and libraries to the internet.
The discussion about the future of USF has reached a critical juncture: Which communities will have access to USF, how it will be funded and whether equitable access to connectivity will continue to be a priority will soon be decided.
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court found the USF’s infrastructure to be constitutional — and a backbone for access and opportunity in this country. Congress recently took a significant next step by relaunching a bicameral, bipartisan working group devoted to overhauling the fund. Now they are actively seeking input from stakeholders on how to best modernize this vital program for the future, and they need our input.
I’m urging everyone who cares about digital equity to make their voices heard. The window for our input in support of this vital connectivity infrastructure is open through September 15.
While Universal Service may appear as only a small fee on our monthly phone bills, its impact is monumental. The fund powers critical programs that form a lifeline for our nation’s most vital institutions and vulnerable populations. The USF helps thousands of schools and libraries obtain affordable internet — including the school I founded in downtown Brooklyn. For students in rural towns, the E-Rate program, funded by the USF, allows access to the same online educational resources as those available to students in major cities. In schools all over the country, the USF helps foster digital literacy, supports coding clubs and enables students to complete homework online.
By wiring our classrooms and libraries, we are investing in the next generation of innovators.
The coming waves of technological change — including the widespread adoption of AI — threaten to make the digital divide an unbridgeable economic chasm. Those on the wrong side of this divide experienced profound disadvantages during the pandemic. To get connected, students at my school ended up doing homework in fast-food parking lots. Entire communities lost vital connections to knowledge and opportunity when libraries closed.
But that was just a preview of the digital struggle. This time, we have to fight to protect the future of this investment in our nation’s vital infrastructure to ensure that the rising wave of AI jobs, opportunities and tools is accessible to all.
AI is rapidly becoming a fundamental tool for the American workforce and in the classroom. AI tools require robust bandwidth to process data, connect to cloud platforms and function effectively.
The student of tomorrow will rely on AI as a personalized tutor that enhances teacher-led classroom instruction, explains complex concepts and supports their homework. AI will also power the future of work for farmers, mechanics and engineers.
Without access to AI, entire communities and segments of the workforce will be locked out. We will create a new class of “AI have-nots,” unable to leverage the technology designed to propel our economy forward.
The ability to participate in this new economy, to upskill and reskill for the jobs of tomorrow, is entirely dependent on the one thing the USF is designed to provide: reliable connectivity.
The USF is also critical for rural health care by supporting providers’ internet access and making telehealth available in many communities. It makes internet service affordable for low-income households through its Lifeline program and the Connect America Fund, which promotes the construction of broadband infrastructure in rural areas.
The USF is more than a funding mechanism; it is a statement of our values and a strategic economic necessity. It reflects our collective agreement that a child’s future shouldn’t be limited by their school’s internet connection, that a patient’s health outcome shouldn’t depend on their zip code and that every American worker deserves the ability to harness new technology for their career.
With Congress actively debating the future of the fund, now is the time to rally. We must engage in this process, call on our policymakers to champion a modernized and sustainably funded USF and recognize it not as a cost, but as an essential investment in a prosperous, competitive and flourishing America.
Erin Mote is the CEO and founder of InnovateEDU, a nonprofit that aims to catalyze education transformation by bridging gaps in data, policy, practice and research.
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.
Despite federal attitudes and policies toward international students, demand to study in the U.S. remains high.
Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Getty Images
Advocates for international students are raising alarms that federal actions are limiting foreign-born learners’ ability to study in the U.S. But researchers say the trend isn’t an indication of international student interest or demand to study in the U.S.
A late July survey of 300 foreign-born students found 91 percent plan to study in the U.S., despite funding cuts and internal instability in the U.S. The reputation of U.S. institutions also has yet to take a hit, with 99 percent of respondents indicating they still trust the academic quality of U.S. institutions.
That’s not to say students are unaware of or undeterred by changes at the federal level. Fifty-five percent of survey respondents indicated some level of concern about pursuing their degree in the U.S., and 50 percent said they’re less excited about the opportunity now than they were previously. The top reason their sentiment has changed is international tensions or politics (54 percent), followed by worries about political instability in the U.S. (45 percent).
Brian Meagher, vice president at Shorelight, a higher education consulting group focused on international students, said at an Aug. 12 media roundtable that even students caught in the visa backlog haven’t shifted their gaze to other countries yet. Instead, they are deferring to the spring semester. May data from the U.S. Department of State shows 19,000 fewer students received a F-1 or J-1 visa that month compared to May 2024, which experts say is the first sign that a fraction of expected students will be coming to campus this fall.
“Most of them want [to study in] the U.S.—they’re not changing their minds to the U.K. or Canada or Australia,” Meagher said. “We do think there will be a longer-term impact on switching to other country destinations as a result of this.”
Others are taking classes online at their host institution or enrolling in a satellite campus elsewhere in the world for their first term, but those are less popular options, Meagher said.
“In talking with prospective students, I’d say the belief is that this is a temporary changeover at an unfortunate time that may result in missing a fall semester,” Shorelight CEO Tom Dretler said during the roundtable.
Long-Term Challenges Expected
While international students see the changes as a short-term setback, some market predictions forecast significant changes to U.S. higher education enrollment and revenue. At least the lack of visas could impact future applications to U.S. colleges, Dretler said.
Research by Holon IQ, a global intelligence agency, points to the U.S. as a top destination country for international students for decades, but since 2016—roughly the start of the first Trump administration—the country lost 10 percentage points of its share of international students.
Starting in 2016, “the U.S. became perceived by some as less welcoming or safe, did not recruit international students as energetically, and denied a substantial fraction of student visa applications, while governments and university sectors in the other countries acted in concert to grow international student numbers,” according to an August report from Holon IQ.
Modeling by Holon IQ finds that a variety of actions by the federal government, including visa policy changes, a crackdown on universities and new tariffs could create barriers to students in the U.S. as well as a climate of uncertainty for prospective students.
The agency predicts the most likely trajectory is there will be a short-term decline in U.S. international enrollment, with 1.12 million students in 2030, unchanged from 2023 levels. But possible scenarios range from an increase in students of 8.3 percent to a drop of 7.9 percent by 2030.
“I think what’s happening in the U.S. is a point in time as to whether the U.S. will continue to lead and for how long it will continue to remain the global leader for international student mobility and a desired study destination,” said Patrick Brothers, co-CEO of Holon IQ Global Impact Intelligence, during the media roundtable.
Paying the Price
Experts warn that a lack of students on campus could mean billions in lost tuition revenue for years to come.
NAFSA, the association of international educators, reported if the number of new international student enrollment declined between 30 and 40 percent, it would result in a 15 percent drop in overall international enrollment and result in a loss of $7 billion in revenue.
June data from Shorelight found even a 20 percent decline would result in a $1.7 billion annual loss in tuition revenue, or $5 billion over four years.
“We think it’s going to be something that is negative for the U.S. economy, negative from a jobs perspective and also very hurtful to colleges and universities, but not always the one that people think,” Dretler said. Top universities will be able to weather the financial hit, pulling students off their waiting lists, but regional and community colleges will experience greater losses, which could increase tuition rates for middle-class families.
States with high international student enrollment would be hit hardest by the changes. Among the top states for international students—California, New York and Texas—Shorelight anticipates a total loss of $566.6 million and NAFSA projects a loss of $2.39 billion, based on their respective data models.
Five years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, academic recovery has stalled nationwide, and achievement gaps have widened, according to the State of Student Learning 2025 report from from Curriculum Associates.
The report offers one of the most comprehensive looks at Grades K–8 student performance in reading and mathematics, based on data from close to 14 million students who took the i-Ready Diagnostic assessment in the 2024–2025 school year.
The report shows that most students have not yet reached pre-pandemic achievement levels, and some are falling even further behind. The report does find some bright spots: Some historically underserved schools, especially majority-Black schools, are seeing modest, positive gains in both reading and mathematics. However, those gains have not yet translated into closing longstanding disparities.
“This report shows that disrupted schooling due to the pandemic continues to impact student learning, particularly for students who are in early grades, are lower performing, or are from historically underserved communities,” said Kristen Huff, head of measurement at Curriculum Associates. “Academic recovery has never been one-size-fits-all, and these results reaffirm the importance of nuanced, data-informed approaches. Above all, they underscore the vital work educators are doing every day to meet students where they are and help them move forward.”
Key findings
Academic progress has plateaued. Since spring 2023, national achievement has remained flat. While many students are growing at pre-pandemic rates, that growth isn’t closing the gap caused by pandemic disruptions.
The achievement gap has grown in many cases. Students who were already behind, particularly those scoring in the bottom 10th percentile, continue to fall behind, while top-performing students have often recovered or surpassed their pre-pandemic levels.
Younger students experienced greater learning losses. Even though they were not yet in school during the pandemic, elementary students, especially in Grades K and 1, saw the largest drops in achievement after the pandemic.
Vulnerable populations are experiencing uneven recovery. The report shows widening gaps between the nation’s highest and lowest performers. Across most grades, the differences between higher and lower percentiles have increased over time.
A data-driven, nationwide look
The 2025 report examines data through the critical years pre- and post-pandemic, from spring 2019 to spring 2025. Using a nationally representative sample of more than 11.7 million reading and 13.4 million mathematics assessments, the research examines:
Grade-level placement: how many students are performing at or below grade level
Scale scores by percentile: how learning differs across performance groups
Annual growth: whether students are making enough academic progress during the school year to recover lost ground
The findings reinforce that targeted support is needed to ensure every student can thrive academically, especially younger students, lower-performing students, and historically underserved communities.
eSchool Media staff cover education technology in all its aspects–from legislation and litigation, to best practices, to lessons learned and new products. First published in March of 1998 as a monthly print and digital newspaper, eSchool Media provides the news and information necessary to help K-20 decision-makers successfully use technology and innovation to transform schools and colleges and achieve their educational goals.
Three in four U.S. students say they hope or plan to study abroad, but a lack of financial resources may hinder those dreams, according to a 2025 Terra Dotta survey.
The survey, which included responses from 275 college students, found that 80 percent of students said insufficient funds would prevent them from studying abroad. Of respondents who have studied abroad or committed to a program abroad, two in five students said they expect to pay over $10,000 for their experiences.
Terra Dotta’s report also noted students want more clarity from their institution about financial aid opportunities to address study abroad expenses.
Methodology
Terra Dotta’s survey included 275 respondents from two- and four-year colleges and universities, both public and private. The study was fielded in February. A majority of respondents had plans to study abroad or had studied abroad previously.
Barriers to access: Study abroad is linked to personal and professional development for participants. A 2024 survey of students from Terra Dotta found that those who studied abroad said the experience helped them identify adaptability and resilience, cross-cultural communication, and problem-solving in new situations as the benefits most useful for their future careers.
However, not every student is able to participate due to financial burdens; among students who don’t plan to study abroad, 48 percent attributed their decision to financial concerns. Cost of attendance is one of the top reasons college students leave higher education, and it can also be a barrier to student participation in on-campus events. A 2024 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab found that 17 percent of students would get more involved in campus activities and events if attendance or participation were less expensive.
Other reasons a student might choose not to study abroad include safety concerns (40 percent), geopolitical issues (28 percent) and worried parents (25 percent). Three-quarters of respondents indicated the wars in Ukraine and Gaza impacted their interest in going abroad.
Academic requirements and a lack of alignment are other challenges for students. Eighteen percent of students said they wouldn’t study abroad due to their major program requirements, and 16 percent think greater alignment between their field of study and study abroad would make the experience more accessible.
Seventeen percent of respondents said they don’t know anything about study abroad or haven’t heard of opportunities, “indicating an opportunity for [colleges] to reach more students,” according to the report.
Footing the bill: When asked to add up tuition, housing, airfare and other expenses, 83 percent of respondents said they plan to spend or spent more than $5,000 on study abroad, and 11 percent said the experience costs roughly $15,000.
Twelve percent of respondents said study abroad experiences were included in their tuition, so they expect to pay nothing additional. Approximately one in five students said they’d pay for study abroad experiences themselves, a 20 percent change from the previous year, according to the report.
Student respondents indicated they want their institution to take on a larger role in addressing the cost of study abroad; one-third of respondents said colleges could make study abroad experiences more accessible by providing more education on financial aid for such programs. If respondents could give their campus advice on improving study abroad experiences, two-thirds said they’d like easier access to financial aid.
Other trends: In addition to the barriers to study abroad, Terra Dotta’s report explored student interests and development related to the experience.
The U.K. is the most popular study abroad destination for respondents (41 percent), mirroring an emerging trend among U.S. students indicating interest in U.K. undergraduate education. Australia (32 percent), Spain (26 percent), Italy (21 percent) and Ireland (21 percent) were other popular destinations. Only 1 percent of students said they planned to travel to China to study.
Three in five respondents said they think study abroad is at least somewhat important for their personal growth, and about a third said experiencing personal growth is one of the top reasons they plan to study abroad.
Of students who had completed a study abroad experience (n=170), a majority said it impacted their worldview by exposing them to new ideas. Students said they were most surprised by social norms and etiquette (47 percent), as well as dining and food customs (24 percent) and the local educational system and values (24 percent).
Clare Rigney is a rising second-year student at American University Washington College of Law and a FIRE summer intern.
After a news story last week that the University of Michigan was paying private investigators to spy on pro-Palestinian student protesters, the school quickly ended its contracts with the surveillance firm.
In case anyone is unaware, the year is 2025. Not 1984.
Now the university says this Orwellian practice has ended, but the chill on student speech will likely remain for some time.
On June 6, The Guardianreported on the story, citing multiple videos and student accounts of investigators cursing at students and threatening them. Between June 2023 and September 2024, U-M reportedly paid about $800,000 to the Detroit-based security company City Shield to carry out this surveillance instead of using the funds to increase the size of the campus police force.
Several of the targeted students were members of Students Allied for Freedom and Equality, the local chapter of the Students for Justice in Palestine, causing critics to accuse the school of targeting pro-Palestinian speech.
One student, Josiah Walker, said he counted 30 people following him at different times on and off-campus. (As a precaution, he started parking his car off-campus.) On one occasion, Walker believed a man at a campus protest was following him. The man seemed to have a speech impairment, so Walker felt bad about that assumption. However, he later saw the same man speaking in a completely normal manner. When Walker confronted him, the man pretended Walker was trying to rob him.
The whole incident was caught on camera.
On the recording, Walker said, “The degree to which all these entities are willing to go to target me is amazing. Guys, this doesn’t make sense. What are you doing? Leave me alone.”
To serve their proper function, universities must facilitate an open and collaborative learning environment as a marketplace of ideas. U-M ostensibly knows this, saying it values “an environment where all can participate, are invited to contribute, and have a sense of belonging.”
Surveillance and intimidation do not cultivate such an environment. U-M’s surveillance will make students want to look over their shoulders before seeking to use their right to free speech.
The Supreme Court’s ruling in Healy v. James requires universities to uphold their students’ First Amendment rights. This extends even to students whose speech the university deems offensive or “antithetical” to the school’s goals.
In Healy, the Court emphasized the danger of an institution targeting a group of students as particularly dangerous based on their viewpoint, noting, “the precedents of this Court leave no room for the view that, because of the acknowledged need for order, First Amendment protections should apply with less force on college campuses than in the community at large.”
Indeed, an important function of college is to allow students to broaden their horizons and meet different kinds of people. And freedom of association allows them to seek out individuals whose beliefs align with theirs so that they can work toward a common goal.
Unfortunately, universities have used these chilling tactics against student political protestors for years.
Amid protests demanding sick pay for frontline workers, the University of Miami in 2020 used facial recognition technology to identify protestors. The university then hauled these students into meetings where they were forced to review Miami’s events policies.
“The take-home message that we got was basically, We’re watching you,” Esteban Wood, one of the student protesters, later said.
When colleges and universities surveil students, they chill speech and promote distrust between student activists and the police meant to protect them.
In 2018, Campus Safety Magazine revealed that the University of Virginia had contracted with a private service called Social Sentinel. This service used an algorithm to monitor students’ social media posts and, if it deemed it necessary, report them to the police.
That same year, FIRE reported on a similar situation at the University of North Carolina. During protests over a confederate statue, a UNC campus police officer masqueraded as an approachable civilian named “Victor” in order to gain information from protesters and track their movements. Later, when students confronted “Victor” in a police uniform, he revealed himself as Officer Hector Bridges, explaining he had pretended to be sympathetic to their cause as a part of his “work.”
“I”m representing the university right now,” Bridges admitted on video.
The UNC Police Department later released a statement saying the university had a practice of sending “plain clothes” officers to patrol the statue to purportedly “maintain student and public safety.”
Chilling student speech in the name of undisclosed and unspecified safety is nothing new. But if it is serious about change, it couldn’t hurt for U-M to start with reviewing its own policies. According to its Division of Public Safety and Security, its role is to foster “a safe and secure environment” where students learn to “challenge the present.” Furthermore, U-M’s Standard Practice Guide section on freedom of speech states that when any non-university security forces are needed, they should know and follow these policies.
While it’s possible to imagine a circumstance where student surveillance might be necessary, colleges should keep in mind that courts have generally disfavored such efforts. For example, in White v. Davis, the Supreme Court of California rebuked the Los Angeles Police Department’s unconstitutional surveillance of UCLA students:
The censorship of totalitarian regimes that so often condemns developments in art, science and politics is but a step removed from the inchoate surveillance of free discussion in the university; such intrusion stifles creativity and to a large degree shackles democracy.
When colleges and universities surveil students, they chill speech and promote distrust between student activists and the police meant to protect them. That can be dangerous for both the students and the officers. Police investigations will be more difficult if the student body does not trust them enough to cooperate when needed. Students may be less likely to contact the police for legitimate violations.
Colleges and universities should empower their students to boldly state their beliefs. That’s simply not possible if they are also hiring outside agencies to spy on them. While we are glad the University of Michigan ended the practice, this case should serve as a reminder that such heavy-handed surveillance tactics have no place at American universities.
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The nation’s first religious public charter school will not be able to open its doors in Oklahoma after a 4-4 split in the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday morning upheld the state supreme court’s ruling that blocked the school.
The high court did not issue written opinions in the case.
In its June 2024 ruling in St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v. Drummond, a six-justice majority of the Oklahoma Supreme Court sided with state Attorney General Genter Drummond, writing that the virtual public charter school’s creation would violate the Oklahoma Constitution and the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. St. Isidore was originally scheduled to open for the 2024-25 school year.
“Enforcing the St. Isidore Contract would create a slippery slope and what the framers’ warned against — the destruction of Oklahomans’ freedom to practice religion without fear of governmental intervention,” the Oklahoma court’s majority wrote in the decision.
If the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled in favor of St. Isidore, the high-profile religious liberty case could have opened the door for a wave of other publicly funded religious schools. The split decision, however, leaves no national precedent on the question of whether religious schools can participate in public charter school programs without violating the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from the case.
St. Isidore is “disappointed” that the decision to block the school’s opening was upheld “without explanation” from the U.S. Supreme Court, said Archbishop of Oklahoma City Rev. Paul Coakley and Bishop of Tulsa Rev. David Konderla, in a joint statement Thursday.
Given this latest ruling, Coakley and Konderla said they are exploring alternative options to offer a virtual Catholic education “to all persons” in Oklahoma and remain committed to parental choice in education.
The Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board, which initially approved St. Isidore’s contract in October 2023, will respect the Supreme Court’s authority following its split decision to uphold the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s ruling, said the board’s Executive Director Rebecca Wilkinson, in a Thursday statement.
“The split decision of the court affirms this was indeed a complicated matter with a wide spectrum of views on the appropriate relationship between education, public funding, and religious institutions in our state and country,” Wilkinson said. “The Statewide Charter School Board remains committed to upholding our constitutional responsibilities and the highest standards of transparency and excellence. We will move forward in that vein, ensuring our policies and practices reflect both the rule of law and commitment to all students.”
Drummond said in a Thursday statement that the Supreme Court’s decision is a “resounding victory for religious liberty and for the foundational principles that have guided our nation since its founding.”
“I have always maintained that we must faithfully uphold the Constitution, even when it requires us to make difficult decisions,” Drummond said. “I will continue upholding the law, protecting our Christian values, and defending religious liberty — regardless of how difficult the battle may be.”
Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters spoke out against the Supreme Court’s move, adding in a Thursday statement that he will always oppose “religious discrimination” and that all children in Oklahoma should be free to choose the best school to attend, whether that’s “religious or otherwise.”
“Allowing the exclusion of religious schools from our charter school program in the name of 19th century religious bigotry is wrong,” Walters said in the statement sent by First Liberty Institute, a nonprofit law firm focused on First Amendment cases on religion.
Still, it seems likely the issues involving the First Amendment’s religious clauses will eventually return to the U.S. Supreme Court, “perhaps in a case better suited for resolution,” said Thomas Jipping, a senior legal fellow in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation, a national conservative think tank.
While it may not be the last time the Supreme Court takes on a case over religious charter schools, “today’s outcome offers clarity for families and educators,” said Starlee Coleman, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, in a statement.
About 8.1% of all public schools are charters. These schools serve 3.7 million enrolled students, of whom two-thirds are from low-income, Black or Latino communities, according to NAPCS.
“Charter schools were launched to offer more public-school options,” and families opt for charters because they are “innovative, student-centered learning environments” that are also accountable to taxpayers, Coleman said. “With this legal clarity, we can move forward with renewed focus on expanding access to high-quality public charter schools for every family nationwide.”
