Oakwood University supports the Trump administration’s controversial compact for higher education that would require signatories to make changes to their policies in order to receive a potential edge in federal funding, Religion News Service (RNS) reported.
The historically Black university in Alabama wrote a Nov. 18 letter to the Education Department about its interest in the compact. Oakwood is the second HBCU to show interest in signing on. Like the other HBCU, Saint Augustine’s University, Oakwood officials say the compact needs to change for them to actually sign it.
Of concern for the HBCUS are provisions that would cap undergraduate international student enrollment at 15 percent, require a five-year tuition freeze and limit the use of race in admissions and other decisions.
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“While we strongly support the Compact’s overarching goals, several provisions of the draft framework raise important concerns that, if left unaddressed, could unintendedly hinder HBCUs’ ability to participate fully or effectively,” Oakwood President Gina Brown wrote in the letter, according to RNS. “Absent a mission-based exemption, HBCUs would face an untenable choice between compliance and fulfilling their congressionally mandated purpose.”
Oakwood is affiliated with the Seventh Day Adventist Church, and RNS noted that faith-based institutions would still be able to consider religion in admissions and hiring.
The Trump administration invited nine universities to give feedback on the proposed compact. Most of that group declined outright to sign it, saying that federal funding should be based on merit, not adherence to a president’s priorities. Since then, New College of Florida, Valley Forge Military College and Saint Augustine’s have indicated interest in joining the compact.
North Carolina’s Advanced Teaching Roles program, which allows highly effective teachers to receive salary supplements for teaching additional students or supporting other teachers, is having positive effects on math and science test scores, according to an evaluation presented by NC State University’s Friday Institute for Educational Innovation at the State Board of Education meeting last week.
Since 2016, the ATR initiative has allowed districts to create new career pathways and provide salary supplements for highly effective teachers — or Advanced Teachers — who mentor and support other educators while still teaching part of the day. Their roles include Adult Leadership teachers, who lead small teams and receive at least $10,000 supplements, and Classroom Excellence teachers, who take on larger student loads and receive a minimum of $3,000 supplements.
Those in adult leadership roles teach for at least 30% of the day, lead a team of 3-8 classroom teachers, and share responsibility for the performance of all those teachers’ students. Classroom excellence teachers are responsible for at least 20% more students than before they enter the role.
“Our ATR program was designed to allow highly effective classroom educators to reach more students and to support the professional growth of educators,” said Dr. Callie Edwards, the program’s lead evaluator, at the State Board of Education meeting last Wednesday. “ATR aims to improve the quality of classroom instruction, the recruitment and retention of teachers, as well as ultimately impact student academic achievement.”
In the 2024-25 school year, 26 districts operated ATR programs across 400 schools — 56% of which were elementary schools — employing 1,494 Advanced Teachers who supported nearly 4,000 classroom teachers statewide, according to the evaluation. Edwards said that 88% of Adult Leadership teachers received at least $10,000, and 85% of Classroom Excellence teachers received $3,000 or more.
Statistical analysis of the 2023-24 school year’s data found that students in ATR schools outperformed their peers in non-ATR schools in math and science, showing statistically significant learning gains.
“Across the various programs I’ve evaluated, these are positive results — especially in math and science — where the impact of ATR is equivalent to about a month of extra learning for students,” said Dr. Lam Pham, the leading quantitative evaluator. “The results in ELA are positive but not statistically significant, which has been consistent for the last three years,” Pham said, referring to English Language Arts.
These effects on math and science grow over time, according to the evaluation. Math scores improved throughout schools’ first six years of ATR implementation — though they are no longer significant by the seventh year of implementation, according to the presentation. For science scores, statistically significant gains began in the fifth year after schools began implementing ATR.
Additionally, math teachers in ATR schools reported higher EVAAS growth scores than their peers in comparable schools.
Teachers in ATR schools also reported feeling like they have more time to do their work compared to teachers in non-ATR schools.
This year’s report featured data on teachers supported by ATR teachers for the first time. The evaluation found no positive effects on test scores for students taught by supported teachers compared to students taught by teachers who are not in the program. The researchers also found no effect on turnover levels for teachers supported by Advanced Teachers. However, the report says additional years of data will be necessary to verify if those effects appear over time.
The evaluation recommended that principals in ATR schools should foster collaboration and communicate strategically about the program with staff, beginning during Advanced Teachers’ hiring and onboarding.
“It’s important to integrate ATR into those processes,” Edwards told the Board. “That means introducing Advanced Teachers to new staff and making collaboration, especially mentoring and coaching, a structured part of the day.”
Edwards said these practices have been adopted in some schools, but principals reported needing more time and support to build collaboration opportunities into the school schedule.
The report also urges district administrators to coordinate with Beginning Teacher (BT) programs, advertise ATR in recruitment materials, and improve their data collection practices. It also calls on state leaders to standardize the program to ensure consistency across participating districts.
“Districts need standardized messaging, professional learning opportunities, and technical assistance to support implementation,” Edwards said. “The state can also create more opportunities for districts to share what’s working with one another and expand the evaluation beyond test scores to capture things like classroom engagement, social, emotional development, and feedback from teachers and principals.”
The evaluators also said “there’s more to do” to expand the program in western North Carolina after Board members raised concerns about uneven participation across the state’s regions.
Tomberlin said DPI received 15 proposals representing 22 districts. These proposals have been evaluated by seven independent evaluators, Tomberlin said. The Board had to choose the program’s next participants by Oct. 15 to comply with a legislative requirement.
The state can only allocate $911,349 for new implementation grants in 2026-27 — less than one-sixth of the funding required to fund all applications. That level of funding is “very low” compared to previous years, Tomberlin said. In the 2023-25 state budget, the General Assembly appropriated $10.9 million in recurring funds for these supplements in each year of the biennium.
Tomberlin recommended that the Board approve the three highest-scoring proposals for the 2026-27 fiscal year, and fund these districts at 85% of their request. If the Board approves this recommendation, the state would still have $37,981 in planning funds left over for districts approved during the 2026 proposal cycle.
Tomberlin said districts are already struggling to pay for the program’s salary supplements. The Friday Institute’s report showed that, despite the high median supplements, some districts are offering supplements as little as $1,000.
“Some districts are not able to pay the full $10,000 because they have more ATR teachers than the funding that we can give them in terms of those allotments,” Tomberlin said. “And we had requested the General Assembly, I think, an additional $14 million to cover those supplements, and we didn’t get any.”
The new “Tracking Transfer” report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center shows little improvement in transfer rates for first-time college students. But it also sheds light on factors that could contribute to better outcomes.
The latest report, part of a series, examined transfer data for students who entered community college in 2017 and for former community college students enrolled at four-year institutions that academic year.
It found that only 31.6 percent of first-time students who started community college in 2017 transferred within six years. And slightly fewer than half of those who transferred, 49.7 percent, earned a bachelor’s degree, consistent with outcomes for the previous cohort.
But some types of students had better outcomes than others. For example, students who came to community college with some dual-enrollment credits had higher transfer and bachelor’s degree completion rates, 46.9 percent and 60.1 percent, respectively.
Bachelor’s degree completion rates were also highest for transfer students at public four-year institutions compared to other types of institutions. Nearly three-quarters of students who transferred from community colleges to public four-year institutions in the 2017–18 academic year earned a bachelor’s degree within six years. The report also found that most transfer students from community colleges, 75.2 percent, attend public four-year colleges and universities.
Retention rates among these students were also fairly high. Among students who transferred, 82 percent returned to their four-year institutions the following year. The retention rate was even higher for students who earned a certificate or an associate degree before they transferred, 86.8 percent, which was nearly 10 percentage points higher those who didn’t earn a credential before transferring.
College Possible’s latest alumni survey shows strong outcomes for participants in its coaching program, including a 93 percent five-year graduation rate for those who attended a four-year college and high rates of employment and job satisfaction.
According to the report, which is based on a survey of 1,300 of the college access nonprofit’s more than 100,000 graduates, 95 percent are employed, 83 percent are employed full-time and more than four in five respondents said they felt fulfilled by their jobs.
The salaries of College Possible graduates are also high, with half reporting salaries over $60,000. The median salary for those working in STEM fields is $101,650, while those in non-STEM careers made a median income of $46,680. Sixty-eight percent of respondents indicated they feel at least somewhat financially secure.
The report also highlights that most of College Possible’s graduates say they benefited significantly from the coaching program, with nine in 10 saying they would recommend College Possible to others and 17 percent returning to coach other students or work for the organization in another capacity.
Autistic college students are experiencing anxiety and depression at significantly higher rates than their non-autistic peers, according to new research from Binghamton University that analyzed data from nearly 150,000 undergraduate students across 342 institutions nationwide.
The study, published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, represents one of the most comprehensive examinations to date of mental health challenges facing autistic students in higher education—a population that researchers say has been historically underrepresented in academic research despite growing enrollment numbers.
“What we found is really staggering—autistic individuals endorse much higher rates of anxiety and depression compared to their non-autistic peers,” said Diego Aragon-Guevara, the study’s lead author and a PhD student in psychology at Binghamton University.
The research team analyzed data from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), which in 2021 became the first year that autism was included as an endorsable category in the survey. This milestone allowed researchers to conduct the first large-scale comparison of mental health outcomes between autistic and non-autistic college students.
“We were really excited to see what the data would tell us. It was a big opportunity to be able to do this,” said Dr. Jennifer Gillis Mattson, professor of psychology and co-director of the Institute for Child Development at Binghamton University, who co-authored the study.
The findings come at a critical time for higher education institutions as autism diagnoses continue to rise nationwide and more autistic students pursue college degrees. The research highlights a significant gap in support services that could impact student success and retention.
“We know the number of autistic college students continues to increase every single year,” Gillis-Mattson noted. “We really do have an obligation to support these students, and to know how best to support these students, we need to look beyond just autism.”
The study reveals that campus support systems may be inadvertently overlooking mental health needs while focusing primarily on autism-specific accommodations. Aragon-Guevara, whose research focuses on improving quality of life for autistic adults, said this represents a critical oversight in student services.
“Support personnel might address an individual’s autism and, in the process, overlook their mental health issues,” he explained. “More care needs to be put into addressing that nuance.”
The research underscores the need for institutions to develop more comprehensive support frameworks that address both autism-related needs and concurrent mental health challenges. The findings suggest that traditional disability services approaches may need significant enhancement to serve this population effectively.
“We want to provide the best support for them and to make sure that they have a college experience where they get a lot out of it, but also feel comfortable,” Aragon-Guevara said.
Dr. Hyejung Kim, an assistant professor in Binghamton’s Department of Teaching, Learning and Educational Leadership, noted that the complexity of factors affecting autistic students requires deeper investigation.
“This population often skews male, and interactions between personal factors and conditions such as anxiety and depression may shape overall well-being in college,” she said.
Kim also pointed to additional considerations that institutions should examine.
“Autistic students are also more likely to pursue STEM fields, and many report different experiences with faculty and staff across institutional settings,” she said. “We still have much to learn about how these and other contextual factors relate to mental well-being.”
The Binghamton team views this study as foundational research that confirms the scope of mental health challenges among autistic college students. Their next phase will investigate specific contributing factors, including social dynamics, faculty support, campus accessibility, and other environmental elements that influence student well-being.
“There are so many elements that go into being comfortable in the new environment that is college,” Aragon-Guevara explained. “We want to look into that and see if there are any deficits in those areas that autistic college students are experiencing, so that we know where we can help support them, or create institutional things to help improve quality of life as a whole.”
The research is part of a broader effort at Binghamton to better understand and support autistic students in higher education, with plans to collaborate with campus partners to develop targeted interventions based on their findings.
Researchers and the academic community may have reason to be hopeful about the future of federal funding. Early indications from the appropriations process suggest that both the House and Senate will diverge significantly from the president’s federal budget proposal for science and technology for the next fiscal year.
In May, the White House released its budget proposal that aims to reduce federal research and development funding by nearly a quarter, according to an analysis from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. It also proposed eliminating funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
Congress still has months of negotiations before the start of the next fiscal year on Oct. 1 but, so far, funding for science has received bipartisan support in appropriations meetings—though the House appears more willing to make significant cuts than the Senate.
In a July 10 Senate Appropriations Committee meeting, legislators put forth a cut to the National Science Foundation (NSF) of only $16 million compared to the more than $5 billion proposed by Trump. Four days later, a House Appropriations Committee subcommittee suggested slashing $2 billion—less than half of Trump’s proposal.
Alessandra Zimmermann, budget analyst and senior manager for the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s R&D Budget and Policy Program, highlighted in a statement the Senate’s proposal and noted that the House’s over 20 percent proposed cut to NSF is still “a much smaller decrease than the Administration’s initial request.”
“This shows that there is bipartisan support for investing in basic research, and putting the U.S. on track for FY26,” Zimmermann said. “The story of the future of science is still being written, and we appreciate the strong support from Congress.”
The House has also suggested increasing by $160 million funding for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science—rejecting the White House’s planned 14 percent cut. The House has floated cutting NASA’s Science Mission Directorate by $1.3 billion, or 18 percent, but that’s still better than Trump’s proposal to nearly halve that budget. The House also proposed $288 million for the Fulbright scholarship, a highly selective cultural exchange program that Trump had recommended eliminating.
The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment Friday.
Bipartisan Support for R&D
Congressional Republicans have remained in lock step with the second Trump administration. Early grumbles about the One Big Beautiful Bill were silent when the House passed it into law July 3, cutting nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid, eliminating a loan program for graduate students and much more.
Still, observers say there is reason for science and research communities to have some optimism that Republicans will step out of line on budget proposals.
“Neither bill goes to the extreme of the president’s budget,” said Debbie Altenburg, vice president of research policy and advocacy at the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities. “We are pleased that both the House and the Senate have marked up bills that are above what the president called for.”
She noted that Republicans, who want the federal government to have a smaller footprint, control Congress and the White House.
“We will be lucky if we get that flat funding” that senators have proposed, she said.
The House and Senate have to agree on a dozen appropriations bills to pass the federal budget by Sept. 30 or risk a government shutdown.
“It’s a very tense political situation,” she said. “It will be hard for Congress to complete all of these bills by the end of September.”
Roger Pielke, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, noted that “this is not the first time that Congress, on science-technology policy issues, has pushed back on the Trump administration.” It happened during Trump’s first term. And, going back to the 1970s and ’80s, research and development “has been a strong bipartisan area of agreement.”
“R&D money goes all over the country,” Pielke said. “… It does kind of have a built-in support structure.”
He said the NSF, which focuses on basic research, may be more insulated from political fights than agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which deals with climate science, and the National Institutes of Health, which deals with vaccines. The congressional appropriations committees haven’t yet indicated what they plan to do with Trump’s proposed 38 percent cut to the NIH.
But, Pielke noted, “in this day and age, everything can be politicized.”
‘Scientific Supremacy’
While House Republicans appear more willing to protect spending for science than the president, Democratic members of the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies subcommittee have criticized the bill. Representative Grace Meng, a New York Democrat and the subcommittee’s ranking member, said a proposed cut to the NSF and NASA “disinvests in the scientific research that drives American innovation, technological leadership and economic competitiveness.”
“As other countries are racing forward in space exploration and climate science, this bill would cause the U.S. to fall behind by cutting NASA’s science account by over $1.3 billion,” Meng said.
Representative Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat and ranking member of the full House Appropriations Committee, said the bill “continues Republicans’ senseless attacks on America’s scientific supremacy.”
“They have fired hundreds of scientists, including scientists who monitor extreme weather and who advance our scientific goals in space,” DeLauro said, referencing the mass layoffs at federal research agencies. “Why on Earth are we forfeiting America’s scientific supremacy? What would you do differently if you were America’s adversary and wanted to undermine everything that made us a superpower?”
In the Senate, where Republicans need Democratic support to get to 60 votes to pass their bill, proposed spending cuts have been more modest.
Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, said during its July 10 meeting that the NSF and NASA appropriations bill “funds research in critical scientific and technological fields.” She said another appropriations bill “supports much-needed investments in agricultural research in animal and plant health that were requested by nearly every member in this room.”
Sen. Patty Murray, a Washington state Democrat and ranking member of the Senate committee, said “these compromise bills offer a far better outcome for families back home than the alternatives of either the House or another disastrous CR [continuing resolution].”
She cautioned, though, that rescissions legislation—like the bill passed by Congress last week that claws back $9 billion in foreign aid and public broadcasting funding–could undermine consensus on a budget.
“We cannot allow bipartisan bills with partisan rescission packages,” she said, asking, “if we start passing partisan cuts to bipartisan deals, how are we ever supposed to work together?”
What if I told you the education system isn’t broken—it’s working exactly the way it was built to? That’s not just a soundbite from my TEDx Talk—it’s my lived experience.
I grew up in a historically underserved neighborhood in Houston, Texas, zoned to one of the lowest-performing elementary schools in the city. But due to a granted academic transfer, I ended up attending a top-performing public school just three miles away. Same city. Different ZIP code. Completely different resources—and trajectory.
That three-mile difference changed everything. And today, as a doctoral student and aspiring professor, I can see how those early disparities still show up in our college classrooms.
Here’s the thing: public school funding in the U.S. depends heavily on local property taxes. That means wealthier neighborhoods get better schools—often with state-of-the-art facilities, robust extracurriculars, and college prep courses—while nearby communities may struggle with crumbling infrastructure and underpaid staff (Owens-Young 2023).
Part of my dissertation, I compared two elementary schools less than three miles apart. One had a PTA raising over $100,000 annually. The other didn’t have working air conditioning. These weren’t just different schools—they were different worlds. And students from those environments bring that context with them when they walk into our lecture halls.
But what we see in higher education—missed assignments, low engagement, quiet classrooms—isn’t always a motivation issue. Often, it’s a preparedness gap. And that gap isn’t the student’s fault.
As faculty, we can’t change where our students come from. But we can shape what they experience once they’re here. Below are four strategies I use in the classroom to help level the playing field:
1. Start by Asking, Not Assuming
Instead of assuming a lack of interest, ask about their background. I use a quick, anonymous prompt on the first day of class: “What’s one thing you overcame to get here today?” One student wrote about taking two buses from the other side of town after getting their younger siblings off to school. That kind of insight changes how we teach.
2. Rethink Participation
Not everyone feels comfortable speaking up in class. Consider using written reflections, discussion boards, or tools like Jamboard and Padlet. For instance, in one of my leadership classes, I use a shared Google Doc where students add thoughts anonymously. The quieter students thrive—and the louder ones gain new perspectives.
3. Normalize Struggle
Students from under-resourced schools often view academic struggle as failure. That’s why I share my own story of nearly failing out during undergrad. I also let students revise one major assignment. One student improved from a 72 to a 90—and more importantly, realized they were capable all along.
4. Offer Flexible Assessment Options
Some students express themselves better visually or verbally. I once had a student create a narrated photo essay instead of a traditional paper—it was powerful, reflective, and demonstrated full mastery. When students see that their strengths are valued, their confidence grows.
None of these ideas require overhauling your entire course. But they do require intentionality. And that’s what makes the difference.
I’ve been the under-resourced student, and now I’m becoming the professor I wish I had—someone who saw potential beyond performance.
We don’t control our students’ ZIP codes. But we do influence how they feel in our classrooms—and whether they believe they belong there.
Lloyd Lindley Jr. is a PhD student in Educational Leadership and Organization at Texas Woman’s University, a TEDx speaker, and author of “From the Hood to Understood”. He is the co-founder of a grassroots nonprofit that advocates for equitable access to education, mentorship, and financial literacy in underserved communities. Lloyd has been featured on Good Morning Houston and KTSU Radio for his impactful community work and continues to champion culturally responsive teaching and student empowerment at all levels of education.
References
Owens-Young, Jessica. 2023. “The ZIP Code Effect.” American University.
What if I told you the education system isn’t broken—it’s working exactly the way it was built to? That’s not just a soundbite from my TEDx Talk—it’s my lived experience.
I grew up in a historically underserved neighborhood in Houston, Texas, zoned to one of the lowest-performing elementary schools in the city. But due to a granted academic transfer, I ended up attending a top-performing public school just three miles away. Same city. Different ZIP code. Completely different resources—and trajectory.
That three-mile difference changed everything. And today, as a doctoral student and aspiring professor, I can see how those early disparities still show up in our college classrooms.
Here’s the thing: public school funding in the U.S. depends heavily on local property taxes. That means wealthier neighborhoods get better schools—often with state-of-the-art facilities, robust extracurriculars, and college prep courses—while nearby communities may struggle with crumbling infrastructure and underpaid staff (Owens-Young 2023).
Part of my dissertation, I compared two elementary schools less than three miles apart. One had a PTA raising over $100,000 annually. The other didn’t have working air conditioning. These weren’t just different schools—they were different worlds. And students from those environments bring that context with them when they walk into our lecture halls.
But what we see in higher education—missed assignments, low engagement, quiet classrooms—isn’t always a motivation issue. Often, it’s a preparedness gap. And that gap isn’t the student’s fault.
As faculty, we can’t change where our students come from. But we can shape what they experience once they’re here. Below are four strategies I use in the classroom to help level the playing field:
1. Start by Asking, Not Assuming
Instead of assuming a lack of interest, ask about their background. I use a quick, anonymous prompt on the first day of class: “What’s one thing you overcame to get here today?” One student wrote about taking two buses from the other side of town after getting their younger siblings off to school. That kind of insight changes how we teach.
2. Rethink Participation
Not everyone feels comfortable speaking up in class. Consider using written reflections, discussion boards, or tools like Jamboard and Padlet. For instance, in one of my leadership classes, I use a shared Google Doc where students add thoughts anonymously. The quieter students thrive—and the louder ones gain new perspectives.
3. Normalize Struggle
Students from under-resourced schools often view academic struggle as failure. That’s why I share my own story of nearly failing out during undergrad. I also let students revise one major assignment. One student improved from a 72 to a 90—and more importantly, realized they were capable all along.
4. Offer Flexible Assessment Options
Some students express themselves better visually or verbally. I once had a student create a narrated photo essay instead of a traditional paper—it was powerful, reflective, and demonstrated full mastery. When students see that their strengths are valued, their confidence grows.
None of these ideas require overhauling your entire course. But they do require intentionality. And that’s what makes the difference.
I’ve been the under-resourced student, and now I’m becoming the professor I wish I had—someone who saw potential beyond performance.
We don’t control our students’ ZIP codes. But we do influence how they feel in our classrooms—and whether they believe they belong there.
Lloyd Lindley Jr. is a PhD student in Educational Leadership and Organization at Texas Woman’s University, a TEDx speaker, and author of “From the Hood to Understood”. He is the co-founder of a grassroots nonprofit that advocates for equitable access to education, mentorship, and financial literacy in underserved communities. Lloyd has been featured on Good Morning Houston and KTSU Radio for his impactful community work and continues to champion culturally responsive teaching and student empowerment at all levels of education.
References
Owens-Young, Jessica. 2023. “The ZIP Code Effect.” American University.
Roughly half of middle and high schoolers report losing interest in math class at least half the time, and 1 in 10 lack interest nearly all the time during class, a new study shows.
In addition, the students who felt the most disengaged in math class said they wanted fewer online activities and more real-world applications in their math classes.
Feeling bored in math class from time to time is not an unusual experience, and feeling “math anxiety” is common. However, the RAND study notes that routine boredom is associated with lower school performance, reduced motivation, reduced effort, and increased rates of dropping out of school.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the study found that the students who are the most likely to maintain their interest in math comprehend math, feel supported in math, are confident in their ability to do well in math, enjoy math, believe in the need to learn math, and see themselves as a “math person.”
Dr. Heather Schwartz, a RAND researcher and the primary investigator of the study, noted that the middle and high school years are when students end up on advanced or regular math tracks. Schwartz said that for young students determining their own sense of math ability, “Tracking programs can be a form of external messaging.”
Nearly all the students who said they identified as a “math person” came to that conclusion before they reached high school, the RAND survey results show. A majority of those students identified that way as early as elementary school. In contrast, nearly a third of students surveyed said they never identified that way.
“Math ability is malleable way past middle school,” Schwartz said. Yet, she noted that the survey indicates students’ perception of their own capabilities often remains static.
The RAND study drew on data from their newly established American Youth Panel, a nationally representative survey of students ages 12-21. It used survey responses of 434 students in grades 5-12. Because this was the first survey sent to members of the panel, there is no comparable data on student math interest prior to the pandemic, so it doesn’t measure any change in student interest.
The RAND study found that 26% percent of students in middle and high school reported losing interest during a majority of their math lessons. On the other end of the spectrum, a quarter of students said they never or almost never lost interest in math class.
There weren’t major differences in the findings across key demographic groups: Students in middle and high school, boys and girls, and students of different races and ethnicities reported feeling bored during a majority of math class at similar rates.
Dr. Janine Remillard, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education and expert in mathematics curriculum, said that in many math classes, “It’s usually four or five students answering all the questions, and then the kids who either don’t understand or are less interested or just take a little bit more time — they just zone out.”
Over 50% of students who lost interest in almost all of their math classes asked for fewer online activities and more real-world problems, the RAND study shows. Schwartz hypothesizes that some online math programs represent a “modern worksheet” and emphasize solo work and repetition. Students who are bored in class instead crave face-to-face activities that focus on application, she said.
During Remillard’s math teacher training classes, she puts students in her math teacher training class into groups to solve math problems. But she doesn’t tell them what strategy to use.
The students are forced to work together in order to understand the process of finding an answer rather than simply repeating a given formula. All of her students typically say that if they had learned math this way, they would think of themselves as a math person, according to Remillard, who was not involved in the RAND study.
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
For more news on STEM learning, visit eSN’s STEM & STEAM hub.
Norah Rami, Chalkbeat
Norah Rami is a Dow Jones education reporting intern on Chalkbeat’s national desk. Reach Norah at [email protected].
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In 2023, New Jersey’s Office of the Secretary of Higher Education signed a first-of-its-kind agreement with a digital mental health provider, Uwill, to provide free access to virtual mental health services to college students across the state.
Over the past two years, 18,000-plus students across 45 participating colleges and universities have registered with the service, representing about 6 percent of the eligible postsecondary population. The state considers the partnership a success and hopes to codify the offering to ensure its sustainability beyond the current governor’s term.
The details: New Jersey’s partnership with Uwill was spurred by a 2021 survey of 15,500 undergraduate and graduate students from 60 institutions in the state, which found that 70 percent of respondents rated their stress and anxiety as higher in fall 2021 than in fall 2020. Forty percent indicated they were concerned about their mental health in light of the pandemic.
Under the agreement, students can use Uwill’s teletherapy, crisis connection and wellness programming at any time. Like others in the teletherapy space, Uwill offers an array of diverse licensed mental health providers, giving students access to therapists who share their backgrounds or language, or who reside in their state. Over half (55 percent) of the counselors Uwill hires in New Jersey are Black, Indigenous or people of color; among them, they speak 11 languages.
What makes Uwill distinct from its competitors is that therapy services are on-demand, meaning students are matched with a counselor within minutes of logging on to the platform. Students can request to see the same counselor in the future, but the nearly immediate access ensures they are not caught in long wait or intake times, especially compared to in-person counseling services.
Under New Jersey’s agreement, colleges and students do not pay for Uwill services, but colleges must receive state aid to be eligible.
The research: The need for additional counseling capacity on college campuses has grown over the past decade, as an increasing number of students enter higher education with pre-existing mental health conditions. The most recent survey of counseling center staff by the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors (AUCCCD) found that while demand for services is on the decline compared to recent years, a larger number of students have more serious conditions.
Over half of four-year institutions and about one-third of community colleges nationwide provide teletherapy to students via third-party vendors, according to AUCCCD data. The average number of students who engaged with services in 2024 was 453, across institution size.
Online therapy providers tout the benefits of having a service that supplements on-campus, in-person therapists’ services to provide more comprehensive care, including racially and ethnically diverse staff, after-hours support and on-demand resources for students.
Eric Wood, director of counseling and mental health at Texas Christian University, told Inside Higher Ed that an ideal teletherapy vendor is one that increases capacity for on-campus services, expanding availability for on-campus staff and ensuring that students do not fall through the cracks.
A 2024 analysis of digital mental health tools from the Hope Center at Temple University—which did not include Uwill—found they can improve student mental health, but there is little direct evidence regarding marginalized student populations’ use of or benefits from them. Instead, the greatest benefit appears to be for students who would not otherwise engage in traditional counseling or who simply seek preventative resources.
One study featured in the Hope Center’s report noted the average student only used their campus’s wellness app or teletherapy service once; the report calls for more transparency around usage data prior to institutional investment.
The data: Uwill reported that from April 2023 to May 2025, 18,207 New Jersey students engaged in their services at the 45 participating institutions, which include Princeton, Rutgers, Montclair State and Seton Hall Universities, as well as the New Jersey Institute of Technology and Stevens Institute of Technology. Engaged students were defined as any students who logged in to the app and created an account.
New Jersey’s total college enrollment in 2022 was 378,819, according to state data. An Inside Higher Ed analysis of publicly available data found total enrollment (including undergraduate and graduate students) among the 45 participating colleges to be 327,353. Uwill participants in New Jersey, therefore, totaled around 4 percent of the state’s postsecondary students or 6 percent of eligible students.
The state paid $4 million for the first year of the Uwill contract, as reported by Higher Ed Dive, pulling dollars from a $10 million federal grant to support pandemic relief and a $16 million budget allocation for higher education partnerships. That totals about $89,000 per institution for the first year alone, or $12 per eligible student, according to an Inside Higher Ed estimate.
In a 2020 interview with Inside Higher Ed, Uwill CEO Michael London said the minimum cost to a college for one year of services is about $25,000, or $10 to $20 per student per year.
New Jersey students met with counselors in more than 78,000 therapy sessions, or about six sessions per student between 2023 and 2025, according to Uwill data. Students also engaged in 548 chat sessions with therapists, sent 6,593 messages and requested 1,216 crisis connections during the first two years of service.
User engagement has slowly ticked up since the partnership launched. In January 2024, the state said more than 7,600 students registered on the platform, scheduling nearly 20,000 sessions. By September 2024, Uwill reported more than 13,000 registered students on the platform, scheduling more than 49,000 sessions. The most recent data, published June 6, identified 18,000 students engaging in 78,000 sessions.
Over 1,200 of Montclair State’s 22,000 students have registered with Uwill since June 2023, Jaclyn Friedman-Lombardo, Montclair State’s director of counseling and psychological services, said at a press conference, or approximately 6 percent of the total campus population.
The state does not require institutions to track student usage data to compare usage to campus counseling center services, but some institutions choose to, according to a spokesperson for both the office of the secretary and Uwill. The secretary’s office can view de-identified campus-level data and institutions can engage with more detailed data, as well.
Creating access: One of the goals of implementing digital mental health interventions is to expand access beyond traditional counseling centers, such as after hours, on weekends or over academic breaks.
Roughly 30 percent of participants in the Uwill partnership completed a session between 5 p.m. and 9 a.m. on a weeknight or on the weekends. Over the 2024–25 winter break, students engaged in 3,073 therapy sessions. More than 90 of those took place outside New Jersey. Students also used Uwill services over summer vacation this past year (9,235 sessions from May 20 to Aug. 26, of which 10 percent took place outside New Jersey).
A majority of users were traditional-aged college students (17 to 24 years old), and 32 percent were white, 25 percent Hispanic and 17 percent Black. The report did not compare participating students’ race to those using on-campus services or general campus populations.
About 85 percent of New Jersey users were looking for a BIPOC therapist, and 9 percent requested therapists who speak languages other than English, including Hindi and Mandarin.
Postsession assessment completed by students who do schedule an appointment has returned positive responses, with a feedback score of 9.5 out of 10 in New Jersey, compared to Uwill’s 9.2 rating nationally.
Unanswered questions: Wood indicated the data leaves some questions left unanswered, such as whether students were also clients at the on-campus counseling center, or if the service had improved students’ mental health over time from a clinical perspective.
“Just because a student had four sessions with a telehealth provider, if they came right back to the counseling center, did it really make an impact on the center’s capacity to see students?” Wood said.
The high cost of the service should also give counseling center directors pause, Wood said, because those dollars could be used for a variety of other interventions to create capacity.
The data indicated some benefits to counseling center capacity, including diverse staff and after-hours support. But to create a true return on investment, counseling centers should calculate how much capacity the tele–mental health service created and its direct impact on student wellness, not just participation in services.
“It would be ideal to compare the number of students receiving services (not just creating an account) through the platform to the number of students who would likely benefit from receiving treatment, as identified by clinically validated mental health screens on population surveys,” said Sara Abelson, assistant professor at the Hope Center and the report’s lead author.
What’s next: New Jersey renewed its contract with Uwill first in January 2024 and then again in May, extending through spring 2026. State leaders said the ongoing services are still supported by pandemic relief funds.
On May 2, New Jersey assemblywoman Andrea Katz from the Eighth District introduced a bill, the Mental Health Early Access on Campus Act, which would require colleges to implement mental health first aid training among campus stakeholders, peer support programs, mental health orientation education and teletherapy services to ensure counseling ratios are one to every 1,250 students per campus. The International Accreditation of Counseling Services recommends universities maintain a ratio of at least one full-time equivalency for every 1,000 to 1,500 students.
“We know that mental health services that our kids need are not going to end when we change governors,” Katz said at a press conference. “We need to make sure that all of this is codified into law.”
