Tag: spending

  • Hawai’i DOE Spending More on Buses for Fewer Students – The 74

    Hawai’i DOE Spending More on Buses for Fewer Students – The 74


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    The number of bus drivers serving Hawaiʻi schools has reached its highest point in four years, but the Department of Education is still falling short of meeting families’ transportation needs.

    This year, 545 bus drivers are serving Hawaiʻi schools, up from 436 last fall, according to recent datafrom the DOE. The department is still short 130 drivers, who are primarily provided through the bus companies Ground Transport Inc. and Roberts Hawaiʻi.

    The department sparked widespread criticism from parents and lawmakers last August when it abruptly cancelled over 100 bus routes for students days before the new school year. To avoid severe shortages this year, DOE consolidated some bus routes with low ridership and launched a new carpooling initiative for parents, according to a recent memo from Deputy Superintendent Jesse Souki. 

    Last year, nearly half of Hawaiʻi students didn’t qualify for bus transportation because they lived within walking distance to their local schools or received a geographic exception to attend a campus outside of their neighborhood. This fall, nearly 13% of students rely on the bus services available to regular education students, down from roughly 16% in the 2023-24 academic year. 

    Special education students receive their own bus services that are required under federal law. 

    Demand for bus drivers has fallen over the past two years, with DOE contracting for 694 drivers in 2023, compared to 675 this fall. Bus companies were better able to keep up with DOE’s demands before the Covid-19 pandemic, and the state was only short 28 drivers in 2019.

    Despite the decline in DOE’s need for drivers, the costs of transporting kids has increased over the past several years. Last school year, the department spent a total of $76 million in state and federal funds on student transportation, compared to $60 million in 2022.

    To reduce families’ reliance on buses, the department has offered free city bus passes to middle and high school students on Oʻahu and Kauaʻi. In the first quarter of the school year, roughly 6,200 Oʻahu students and 99 Kauaʻi students took advantage of the bus passes, according to the DOE, with the majority of participants from Oʻahu schools.

    Maui and Hawaiʻi County already offer free bus services to students.

    This fall, DOE also introduced a carpool pilot program, which allows parents in the Mililani and Kekaulike complexes to connect with nearby families who can transport their kids between school and home.

    Only 3% of families in the complexes have registered for the program, according to the DOE.

    The department will give more updates on student transportation during Thursday’s Board of Education meeting.


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  • Florida DOGE Finds Disproportionate Spending at New College

    Florida DOGE Finds Disproportionate Spending at New College

    New College spent $83,207 per student in fiscal year 2024, the highest among state universities.

    Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Thomas Simonetti/The Washington Post/Getty Images

    Nearly three years into a conservative overhaul of New College of Florida, costs are adding up as the operating expenses per student dramatically outpace other State University System of Florida members.

    Data presented at Thursday’s Florida Board of Governors offers the clearest breakdown so far of what New College is spending per student compared to 11 other system members. NCF spent $83,207 per student in fiscal year 2024, the highest among state universities.

    The University of Florida, a major research institution, was the next highest at $45,765 per student, while the lowest was the University of Central Florida at $12,172 per student, according to data compiled by the Florida Department of Government Efficiency.

    New College and UF also had the highest number of administrators per 100 students. New College had 33.3 administrators per 100 students while UF had 26.9. Others in the system ranged from a low of 4.6 administrators per student at UCF to 12.6 at the University of South Florida.

    Silence on Spending

    Now, despite support from Republican governor Ron DeSantis—who appointed a slate of conservative trustees in early 2023 and tasked them with reimagining the small liberal arts college—NCF is facing growing scrutiny over soaring operating expenses from alumni and other community members. But the Florida Board of Governors, which is appointed by DeSantis, had little to say when presented with the numbers at Thursday’s meeting.

    Eric Silagy, who has been the board member most critical of NCF’s spending and has previously pressed college leadership on the matter, was the only one to offer remarks about the disparity. In limited comments, Silagy thanked Ben Watkins, director of the Florida Division of Bond Finance, for the presentation, which he said made university spending clear.

    Now, Silagy said, “there can be no question anymore about what the numbers really are.” He added that Florida’s DOGE data will allow the Board of Governors to “address outliers where it’s not working” and determine how to reach “better outcomes for the students and the taxpayers.”

    Silagy had clashed with NCF President Richard Corcoran, a former Republican lawmaker, on how much New College spends per student in past meetings. Silagy had estimated NCF spent $91,000 per student, while Corcoran initially said the number was closer to $68,000 per head. Corcoran later backtracked, agreeing the figure was between $88,000 and $91,000 per student.

    That spending has ticked up even as critics in the community and state legislature are growing, and as the college saw its place in U.S. News & World Report rankings fall nearly 60 spots since the takeover. The rankings are highly valued by Florida lawmakers and system officials.

    Asked about DOGE’s findings, a New College spokesperson said issues preceded current leadership.

    “Thanks to Governor DeSantis and the Florida Legislature making a bold move to appoint new leadership with clear goals, the impact of New College’s revitalization is already visible with enrollment surpassing 900 students for the first time in history,” New College spokesperson James Miller wrote in an emailed statement to Inside Higher Ed. “As enrollment growth continues to skyrocket, cost-per-student and cost-per-graduate metrics will be one of the lowest of all top liberal arts schools in the country.”

    Other Meeting Notes

    Thursday’s board meeting also included an update from UCF President Alexander Cartwright, who told FLBOG members that the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) had approved the university for initial accreditation, amid an effort to switch accreditors that had been underway since 2023.

    UCF, like other state institutions, sought to switch from Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges to another accreditor, following a change to state law in 2022 that mandated the switch after state officials clashed with the organization over various issues.

    Cartwright said he received the news from HLC just hours earlier during the meeting.

    State University System of Florida Chancellor Ray Rodrigues credited Cartwright for his work on the effort and criticized the Biden administration for allegedly slow-walking the process.

    Rodrigues argued that the Biden administration “did not want to see reform in the area of accreditation” and “put up barriers and obstacles to states like Florida and universities like UCF” who were seeking to change accreditors while following Department of Education guidelines.

    The Florida Board of Governors also approved a policy change that will now require professors at all state universities to publicly post course materials. The policy will require “universities to post current syllabi for all courses and course sections offered for the upcoming term” at least 45 days before the first day of class. Those materials will then remain online for at least five years.

    That policy change, which has been the subject of recent media coverage highlighting faculty concerns about being targeted for course content, was passed as part of the consent agenda with no public discussion. No faculty members spoke about the policy change during the public comment portion of the meeting despite concerns expressed by professors in recent coverage.

    The board did not take action or discuss a directive from DeSantis late last month to “pull the plug” on hiring workers on H-1B visas at state universities amid concerns that such hires are taking jobs that could otherwise be filled by Floridians. (However, critics have noted such jobs are often highly specialized and hard to fill.) The board plans to consider that directive in January.

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  • Rural Americans support more government spending on child care

    Rural Americans support more government spending on child care

    Hello! This is Christina Samuels, the early education editor here at Hechinger.

    By now, I hope you’ve had a chance to read my colleague Jackie Mader’s story about the important role that Head Start plays in rural communities. While Jackie set her story in western Ohio, she also interviewed Head Start parents and leaders in other parts of the country and collected their views for a follow-up article.

    In a fortunate bit of timing, the advocacy group First Five Years Fund published the results of a survey it commissioned on rural Americans and their feelings on child care access and affordability. Like the people Jackie interviewed, the survey respondents, more than half of whom identified as supporters of President Donald Trump, said they had very positive views of Head Start. The federally funded free child care program received positive marks from 71 percent of rural Republicans, 73 percent of rural independents and 92 percent of rural Democrats.

    The survey also found that 4 out of 5 respondents felt that finding quality child care is a major or critical problem in their part of the country. Two-thirds of those surveyed felt that spending on child care and early education programs is a good use of taxpayer dollars, and a little more than half said they’d like to see more federal dollars going to such programs.

    First Five Years Fund was particularly interested in getting respondents to share their thoughts on Head Start, said Sarah Rubinfield, the managing director of government affairs for First Five Years Fund. The program has been buffeted by regional office closures and cuts driven by the administration’s Department of Government Efficiency. 

    “We recognize that these are communities that often have few options for early learning and care,” Rubinfield said.

    In the survey, rural residents said they strongly supported not just the child care offered by Head Start, but the wraparound services such as healthy meals and snacks and the program’s support for children with developmental disabilities. Though Head Start programs are federally funded, community organizations are the ones in charge of spending priorities.

    “Rural voters want action. They support funding for Head Start and for child care. They want Congress to do more,” Rubinfield said. Though the “big beautiful bill” signed into law in July expands the child care tax credit for low-income families, survey respondents “recognized that things were not solved,” she added.

    The First Five Years Fund survey was released just a few days before a congressional standoff led to a government shutdown. The shutdown is not expected to touch Head Start immediately, said Tommy Sheridan, the deputy director of the National Head Start Association, in an interview with The New York Times. The 1,600 Head Start programs across the country receive money at different points throughout the calendar year; eight programs serving about 7,500 children were slated to receive their federal funding on Oct. 1, Sheridan told the Times. All should be able to continue operating, as long as the shutdown doesn’t last more than a few weeks, he said. 

    “We’re watching with careful concern but trying not to panic,” Rubinfield said. “We know the impacts may not be immediate, but the longer this goes on, the harder the impacts may be for families and programs.”

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

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

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  • Spending Soars, Rankings Fall at New College of Florida

    Spending Soars, Rankings Fall at New College of Florida

    More than two years into a conservative takeover of New College of Florida, spending has soared and rankings have plummeted, raising questions about the efficacy of the overhaul.

    While state officials, including Republican governor Ron DeSantis, have celebrated the death of what they have described as “woke indoctrination” at the small liberal arts college, student outcomes are trending downward across the board: Both graduation and retention rates have fallen since the takeover in 2023.

    Those metrics are down even as New College spends more than 10 times per student what the other 11 members of the State University System spend, on average. While one estimate last year put the annual cost per student at about $10,000 per member institution, New College is an outlier, with a head count under 900 and a $118.5 million budget, which adds up to roughly $134,000 per student.

    Now critics are raising new questions about NCF’s reputation, its worth and its future prospects as a public liberal arts college.

    A Spending Spree

    To support the overhaul, the state has largely issued a blank check for New College, with little pushback from officials.

    While some—like Florida Board of Governors member Eric Silagy—have questioned the spending and the state’s return on investment, money keeps flowing. Some critics say that’s because the college is essentially a personal project of the governor.

    “With DeSantis, I think his motivation for the takeover was that he was running for president and he needed some educational showcase. And he picked us because we were an easy target,” one New College of Florida faculty member said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

    But now, two-plus years and one failed presidential run later, money continues to flow to the college to help establish new athletics programs and recruit larger classes each year. Part of the push behind such recruiting efforts, the faculty member said, is because of retention issues.

    “It’s kind of like a Ponzi scheme: Students keep leaving, so they have to recruit bigger and bigger cohorts of students, and then they say, ‘Biggest class ever’ because they have to backfill all the students who have left,” they said.

    Nathan Allen, a New College alum who served as vice president of strategy at NCF for almost a year and a half after the takeover but has since stepped down, echoed that sentiment, arguing that administrators are spending heavily with little return on investment and have failed to stabilize the institution. He also said they’ve lost favor with lawmakers, who have expressed skepticism in conversations—even though New College is led by former Speaker of the Florida House Richard Corcoran, a Republican.

    “I think that the Senate and the House are increasingly sensitive to the costs and the outcomes,” Allen said. “Academically, Richard’s running a Motel 6 on a Ritz-Carlton budget, and it makes no sense.”

    While New College’s critics have plenty to say, supporters are harder to find.

    Inside Higher Ed contacted three NCF trustees (one of whom is also a faculty member), New College’s communications office, two members of the Florida Board of Governors (including Silagy) and the governor’s press team for this article. None responded to requests for comment.

    A Rankings Spiral

    Since the takeover, NCF has dropped nearly 60 spots among national liberal arts colleges in the U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges rankings, from 76th in 2022 to 135th this year.

    Though critics have long argued that such rankings are flawed and various institutions have stopped providing data to U.S. News, the state of Florida has embraced the measurement. Officials, including DeSantis, regularly tout Florida’s decade-long streak as the top state for higher education, and some public universities have built rankings into their strategic plans. But as most other universities in the state are climbing in the rankings, New College is sliding, a fact unmentioned at a Monday press conference featuring DeSantis and multiple campus leaders.

    Corcoran, the former Republican lawmaker hired as president shortly after the takeover, did not directly address the rankings slide when he spoke at the briefing at the University of Florida. But in his short remarks, Corcoran quibbled over ranking metrics.

    “The criteria is not fair,” he said.

    Specifically, he took aim at peer assessment, which makes up 20 percent of the rankings criteria. Corcoran argued that Florida’s institutions, broadly, suffer from a negative reputation among their peers, whose leaders take issue with the conservative agenda DeSantis has imposed on colleges and universities.

    “This guy has changed the ideology of higher education to say, ‘We’re teaching how to think, not what to think,’ and we’re being peer reviewed by people who think that’s absolutely horrendous,” Corcoran said.

    An Uncertain Future

    As New College’s cost to the state continues to rise and rankings and student outcomes decline, some faculty members and alumni have expressed worry about what the future holds. While some believe DeSantis is happy to keep pumping money into New College, the governor is term limited.

    “It’s important to keep in mind that New College is not a House or Senate project; it’s not a GOP project. It’s a Ron DeSantis project. Richard Corcoran has a constituency of one, and that’s Ron,” Allen said.

    Critics also argue that changes driven by the college’s administration and the State University System—such as reinstating grades instead of relying on the narrative evaluations NCF has historically used and limiting course offerings, among other initiatives—are stripping away what makes New College special. They argue that as it loses traditions, it’s also losing differentiation.

    Rodrigo Diaz, a 1991 New College graduate, said that the Sarasota campus had long attracted quirky students who felt stifled by more rigid academic environments. Now the administration and state are imposing “uniformity,” he said, which he argued will be “the death of New College.”

    And some critics worry that death is exactly what lies ahead for NCF. The anonymous faculty member said they feel “an impending sense of doom” at New College and fear that it could close within the next two years. Allen said he has heard a similar timeline from lawmakers.

    Even Corcoran referenced possible closure at a recent Board of Governors meeting.

    In his remarks, the president emphasized that a liberal arts college should “produce something different.” And “if it doesn’t produce something different, then we should be closed down. But if we are closed down, I say this very respectfully, Chair—then this Board of Governors should be shut down, too,” Corcoran said, noting that many of its members have liberal arts degrees.

    To Allen, that remark was an unforced error that revealed private conversations about closure are likely happening behind closed doors.

    “I think Richard made the mistake of not realizing those conversations haven’t been public. He made them public, but the Board of Governors is very clearly talking to him about that,” he said.

    But Allen has floated an alternative to closure: privatization.

    Founded in 1960, New College was private until it was absorbed by the state in 1975. Allen envisions “the same deal in reverse” in a process that would be driven by the State Legislature.

    “I think that the option set here is not whether it goes private or stays public, I think it’s whether it goes private or closes,” Allen said. “And I think that that is increasingly an open conversation.”

    (Though NCF did not respond to media inquiries, Corcoran has voiced opposition to such a plan.)

    Allen has largely pushed his plan privately, meeting with lawmakers, faculty, alumni and others. Reactions are mixed, but the idea seems to be a growing topic of conversation on campus. The anonymous faculty member said they are increasingly warming to the idea as the only viable solution, given that they believe the other option is closure within the next one to three years.

    “I’m totally convinced this is the path forward, if there is a path forward at all,” they said.

    Diaz said the idea is also gaining momentum in conversations with fellow alumni. He called himself “skeptical but respectful” of the privatization plan and said he has “a lot of doubt and questions.” But Diaz said that he and other alumni should follow the lead of faculty members.

    “Now, if the faculty were to jump on board with the privatization plan, then I think that people like myself—alumni like myself, who are concerned for the future of the college—should support the faculty,” Diaz said. “But the contrary is also true. If the faculty sent up a signal that ‘We don’t like this, we have doubts about this,’ then, in good conscience, I don’t think I could back the plan.”

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  • Utah State University to face state audit amid concerns about former leader’s spending

    Utah State University to face state audit amid concerns about former leader’s spending

    Dive Brief:

    • Utah State University will undergo a state audit following an initial review that found “concerns about USU’s governance, leadership, and culture of policy noncompliance.” 
    • At a Tuesday meeting, the state Legislature’s audit subcommittee voted unanimously to conduct a deeper review of the university, which will look at governance and procurement processes, particularly in the president’s office.
    • The review comes amid reporting that Elizabeth Cantwell, the university’s former president, spent heavily on office remodeling and transportation during her tenure before departing earlier this year.

    Dive Insight:

    State legislative auditors raised issues with both spending practices and oversight controls at the highest levels of Utah State. 

    Under the heading of “leadership concerns,” they pointed to institutional purchase card transactions that “significantly increased” during the past two years compared to the preceding half decade. 

    Those increases occurred during the tenure of Cantwell, who was appointed president in 2023 and stepped down unexpectedly earlier this year to serve as president of Washington State University. 

    Alan Smith, dean of Utah State’s college of education and human services, is serving as interim president while the institution searches for a permanent leader. 

    This March, shortly after the announcement of Cantwell’s departure, Cache Valley Daily obtained public records of heavy spending during her tenure. The report noted a $285,000 office remodel that included more than $184,000 in furniture costs, over $800 in spending on mirrors and a $750 bidet toilet.

    It also detailed several vehicles Cantwell used for transportation during her time at Utah State, including a new Toyota SUV and a $30,000 electric vehicle. 

    Auditors flagged purchase card spending during the past two years that “may be concerning due to the nature of the purchases, the dollar amounts involved, and the level of oversight.”

    They also noted “issues with the amount spent on presidential motor vehicle assets in the last two years being almost triple the amount for the five years before.”

    The review also raised concerns about how Utah State’s leaders acquired goods and services from third parties. Specifically, they found that some executive staff committed the university to contracts over $52,000 — and up to $430,000 — before completing the purchasing process. 

    Their report recommended a review of procurement policies, controls over open purchase orders, and spending and assets in the Utah State president’s office, as well as an evaluation of whether “governance and leadership at USU have the appropriate structure, tools, processes, culture, structure, and personnel in place to ensure success.”

    On Tuesday,  state lawmakers on the audit subcommittee called for a deep investigation of the university’s spending. 

    “I love Utah State. It’s a big part of my district, it employs a lot of people in my district,” one member told audit staff during the meeting. “But I have serious concerns about what is happening at Utah State right now, and so whatever latitude you feel that you need, I like to be part of authorizing that —  as deep as you can go.”

    Tessa White, chair of the university’s trustee board, voiced support for the state audit at the meeting. 

    “We welcome the audit,” White said. “There are areas that we are aware of and taking aggressive steps to remedy. We hope that by the time that your audit is done, we will have a whole list of things completed that will give you greater confidence in the school.”

    Procurement policies and processes have come under fire at other public institutions as politicians and auditors home in on their spending practices. 

    Early this year, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham called for Western New Mexico University’s entire board of regents to resign after an auditing report surfaced spending by leadership that showed “a concerning lack of compliance with established university policies.”

    A state audit late last year of the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system found several financial transactions that violated institutional policies or lacked adequate documentation. That included some $19,000 in spending on food over two years by Chancellor Terrence Cheng. 

    In 2024, a state audit of University of Maryland Global Campus raised issues with leadership oversight of a spinoff nonprofit, pointing to — among other issues — a $25.7 million IT project that ended without a viable product.

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  • Families Spending More on College

    Families Spending More on College

    Families reportedly spent an average of $30,837 for college last year.

    Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Getty Images | Rawpixel

    Families are spending about 9 percent more on college compared to last year, according to a recently released survey from Sallie Mae and Ipsos.

    The results of the survey, released earlier this week, are part of the annual “How America Pays for College” report. Ipsos surveyed about 1,000 undergraduate students and the same number of parents of undergrads from April 8 to May 8. The online survey delved into a range of topics from how they were paying for college to their views on the federal student loan program.

    On average, families spent $30,837 on college, which is similar to pre-pandemic spending—in the 2019–20 academic year, families spent $30,017 on average. In line with previous years, families are typically using their own money to pay for college, with income and savings adding up to 48 percent of the pie, and scholarships and grants accounted for a 27 percent slice.

    But 40 percent of the families surveyed didn’t seek scholarships to help pay for college because they either didn’t know about the available opportunities or didn’t think they could win one. About three-quarters of respondents who received a scholarship credited that aid with making college possible.

    Similar to other recent surveys, while a majority of families see college as worth the money, cost is still a key factor. About 79 percent reported that they eliminated at least one institution based on the price tag. Still, about 47 percent of respondents said they ended up paying less than the sticker price. That number is higher for families with students at private four-year universities. About 54 percent said they paid less compared to 45 percent of respondents at public four-year institutions.

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  • Higher Ed Lobbying Spending Rises

    Higher Ed Lobbying Spending Rises

    Facing a proposal by congressional Republicans to significantly raise the endowment tax and other major changes for the sector, colleges spent millions of dollars on lobbying efforts in the second quarter of 2025.

    An Inside Higher Ed analysis of federal lobbying spending by members of the Association of American Universities and other select institutions showed a slight uptick in spending over the first quarter of 2025. AAU members alone spent about $9 million in the first quarter of 2025, which dramatically outpaced the same time frame in 2024.

    That number rose even more in the second quarter: Federal data shows AAU members spent more than $9.7 million on lobbying—and that’s without the multiple institutions that failed to report their numbers by a July 21 deadline, making the total likely higher. Emory University spent the most among AAU members, totaling $500,000. Among non-AAU members, the University of Phoenix spent the most, at $480,000.

    Here’s a look at how much universities spent on federal lobbying in the second quarter of 2025, and what issues they focused on between April 1 and June 30, as reported in required disclosures.

    Lobbying Expenditures

    Some institutions maintained spending levels similar to the first quarter, while others significantly increased lobbying expenditures. Emory, for example, spent $170,000 in the first quarter of 2025. But in the second quarter it increased that spending by $330,000 as lobbyists pressed Congress on cuts to federal research and public health funding, Senate disclosure reports show. Compared to data from prior years, this is the most Emory has spent on lobbying in one quarter.

    (Emory did not respond to a request for comment.)

    Emory was one of a few institutions that cracked the top 10 in terms of spending while also having the highest percentage increase in lobbying expenditures, at nearly 200 percent. Others that heavily ratcheted up lobbying efforts include Cornell University, which went from $230,000 to $444,000 over one quarter; the University of Washington, which jumped from $250,000 to $440,000; and Johns Hopkins University, which boosted lobbying from $170,00 to $380,000 between quarters.

    Only the University of Washington provided a statement to Inside Higher Ed on lobbying expenses, with spokesperson Victor Balta writing, “In light of a changing federal policy environment, we want to make sure that we are well represented so that we can continue to serve the American people through our teaching and research. Additionally, some expenses from our associations in these areas have gone up or are charged in Q2 for the full year.”

    All four institutions—along with many others—brought concerns about federal research funding to Congress, according to lobbying disclosure forms. Other key concerns for the sector included legislation that would likely limit international student enrollment and federal student aid.

    Some institutions dialed back their lobbying expenditures in the second quarter.

    Northwestern University spent the most on lobbying among single-institution AAU members in the first quarter of 2025 (excluding the University of California, which lobbies as a system)—$607,000. That declined to $306,000 for the second quarter, a figure that remains in the top 10 among AAU member institutions despite falling by nearly half.

    Lobbying Wins and Losses

    Higher education lobbyists seemed to score at least a few wins with their congressional efforts.

    Liz Clark, vice president for policy and research at the National Association of College and University Business Officers, noted at NACUBO’s annual conference this week that recent federal legislation could have imposed far-reaching and costly changes for higher education.

    The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, as President Donald Trump deemed it, capped some student loan programs and eliminated the Grad PLUS program, limited repayment options, and mandated that programs pass an earnings test for attendees to be able to access federal student loans. The federal legislation also tweaked the endowment excise tax, among other changes for the sector.

    But Clark noted that a leaked memo from January, well before the bill was passed in July, showed congressional Republicans considered changes that would have gone further, including imposing taxes on scholarships, dramatically increasing the endowment tax and cutting certain tax credits.

    “In that memo, it was very clear that higher education was on the menu,” Clark said.

    However, those changes never materialized as proposed. The Senate walked back House plans to significantly raise the endowment tax and extend it to far more institutions, opting for a softer blow, capping it at a maximum of 8 percent instead of the proposed 21 percent. Clark told NACUBO attendees that “what was not in the bill” was a win for the sector.

    Thad Inge, vice president at the lobbying firm Van Scoyoc Associates, told NACUBO attendees Monday that the leaked memo was “a real wake-up call” that “activated a lot of advocacy.”

    Inge argued that many of the proposals in the memo would have been harmful for the sector and that while higher education can absorb some hits, altogether it presented “an existential threat.” He credited individual institutions with making a personalized push to get through to Congress.

    “It’s easy to demonize Harvard and Yale and Columbia and say higher education is woke,” Inge said. “But when folks hear from schools in their state, schools in their district, they don’t paint with such a broad brush. I think those cultural battles will continue, but the more we as advocates bring it back home—not that we’re not fighting on behalf of all of higher education—but I think making it more personal to the state and the district makes it easier to win those battles.”

    Sector lobbyists weren’t quite as successful in other areas.

    Multiple universities have lobbied to maintain research funding as the Trump administration yanked federal grants and contracts, often with little to no warning or explanation. So far, the federal government has been impervious to their efforts. Similarly, many institutions advocated for the continuance of the Grad PLUS program, which was axed by Congress in July.

    Some colleges also encouraged Congress to push back on policies that could harm international enrollment and cause visa processing delays or denials—such as vetting social media posts for criticism of the U.S. government and culture—which the State Department continues to do.

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  • Embracing complexity in writing instruction

    Embracing complexity in writing instruction

    Key points:

    Early in our careers, when we were fresh-faced and idealistic (we still are!) the prepackaged curriculum and the advice of more experienced colleagues was the go-to resource. Largely, we were advised that teaching writing was a simple matter of having students walk through and complete organizers, spending about one day for each “stage” of the writing process. At the end of the writing unit, students had finished their compositions–the standardized, boring, recreated ideas that we taught them to write.

    As we matured and grew as teachers of writing, we learned that teaching writing in such simplistic ways may be easier, but it was not actually teaching students to be writers. We learned with time and experience that writing instruction is a complex task within a complex system.

    Complex systems and wicked problems

    Complexity as it is applied to composition instruction recognizes that there is more than just a linear relationship between the student, the teacher, and the composition. It juggles the experiences of individual composers, characteristics of genre, availability of resources, assignment and individual goals, and constraints of composing environments. As with other complex systems and processes, it is non-linear, self-organizing, and unpredictable (Waltuck, 2012).

    Complex systems are wicked in their complexity; therefore, wicked problems cannot be solved by simple solutions. Wicked problems are emergent and generative; they are nonlinear as they do not follow a straight path or necessarily have a clear cause-and-effect relationship. They are self-organizing, evolving and changing over time through the interactions of various elements. They are unpredictable and therefore difficult to anticipate how they will unfold or what the consequences of any intervention might be. Finally, they are often interconnected, as they are symptoms of other problems. In essence, a wicked problem is a complex issue embedded in a dynamic system (Rittel & Webber, 1973).

    Writing formulas are wicked

    As formulaic writing has become and remains prevalent in instruction and classroom writing activity, graphic organizers and structural guides, which were introduced as a tool to support acts of writing, have become a wicked problem of formula; the resource facilitating process has become the focus of product. High-stakes standardized assessment has led to a focus on compliance, production, and quality control, which has encouraged the use of formulas to simplify and standardize writing instruction, the student writing produced, and the process of evaluation of student work. Standardization may improve test scores in certain situations, but does not necessarily improve learning. Teachers resort to short, formulaic writing to help students get through material more quickly as well as data and assessment compliance. This serves to not only create product-oriented instruction, but a false dichotomy between process and product, ignoring the complex thinking and design that goes into writing.

    As a result of such a narrow view of and limited focus on writing process and purpose, formulas have been shown to constrain thinking and limit creativity by prioritizing product over the composing process. The five-paragraph essay, specifically, is a structure that hinders authentic composing because it doesn’t allow for the “associative leaps” between ideas that come about in less constrained writing. Formulas undermine student agency by limiting writers’ abilities to express their unique voices because of over-reliance on rigid structures (Campbell, 2014; Lannin & Fox, 2010; Rico, 1988).

    An objective process lens: A wicked solution

    The use of writing formulas grew from a well-intentioned desire to improve student writing, but ultimately creates a system that is out of balance, lacking the flexibility to respond to a system that is constantly evolving. To address this, we advocate for shifting away from rigid formulas and towards a design framework that emphasizes the individual needs and strategies of student composers, which allows for a more differentiated approach to teaching acts of writing.

    The proposed framework is an objective process lens that is informed by design principles. It focuses on the needs and strategies that drive the composing process (Sharples, 1999). This approach includes two types of needs and two types of strategies:

    • Formal needs: The assigned task itself
    • Informal needs: How a composer wishes to execute the task
    • “What” strategies: The concrete resources and available tools
    • “How” strategies: The ability to use the tools

    An objective process lens acknowledges that composing is influenced by the unique experiences composers bring to the task. It allows teachers to view the funds of knowledge composers bring to a task and create entry points for support.

    The objective process lens encourages teachers to ask key questions when designing instruction:

    • Do students have a clear idea of how to execute the formal need?
    • Do they have access to the tools necessary to be successful?
    • What instruction and/or supports do they need to make shifts in ideas when strategies are not available?
    • What instruction in strategies is necessary to help students communicate their desired message effectively?

    Now how do we do that?

    Working within a design framework that balances needs and strategies starts with understanding the type of composers you are working with. Composers bring different needs and strategies to each new composing task, and it is important for instructors to be aware of those differences. While individual composers are, of course, individuals with individual proclivities and approaches, we propose that there are (at least) four common types of student composers who bring certain combinations of strategies and needs to the composition process: the experience-limited, the irresolute, the flexible, and the perfectionist composers. By recognizing these common composer types, composition instructors can develop a flexible design for their instruction.

    An experience-limited composer lacks experience in applying both needs and strategies to a composition, so they are entirely reliant on the formal needs of the assigned task and any what-strategies that are assigned by the instructor. These students gravitate towards formulaic writing because of their lack of experience with other types of writing. Relatedly, an irresolute composer may have a better understanding of the formal and informal needs, but they struggle with the application of what and how strategies for the composition. They can become overwhelmed with options of what without a clear how and become stalled during the composing process. Where the irresolute composer becomes stalled, the flexible composer is more comfortable adapting their composition. This type of composer has a solid grasp on both the formal and informal needs and is willing to adapt the informal needs as necessary to meet the formal needs of the task. As with the flexible composer, the perfectionist composer is also needs-driven, with clear expectations for the formal task and their own goals for the informal tasks. Rather than adjusting the informal needs as the composition develops, a perfectionist composer will focus intensely on ensuring that their final product exactly meets their formal and informal needs.

    Teaching writing requires embracing its complexity and moving beyond formulaic approaches prioritizing product over process. Writing is a dynamic and individualized task that takes place within a complex system, where composers bring diverse needs, strategies, and experiences. By adopting a design framework, teachers of writing and composing can support students in navigating this complexity, fostering creativity, agency, and authentic expression. It is an approach that values funds of knowledge students bring to the writing process, recognizing the interplay of formal and informal needs, as well as their “what” and “how” strategies; those they have and those that need growth via instruction and experience. Through thoughtful design, we can grow flexible, reflective, and skilled communicators who are prepared to navigate the wicked challenges of composing in all its various forms.

    These ideas and more can be found in When Teaching Writing Gets Tough: Challenges and Possibilities in Secondary Writing Instruction.

    References

    Campbell, K. H. (2014). Beyond the five-paragraph essay. Educational Leadership, 71(7), 60-65.

    Lannin, A. A., & Fox, R. F. (2010). Chained and confused: Teacher perceptions of formulaic writing. Writing & Pedagogy, 2(1), 39-64.

    Rico, G. L. (1988). Against formulaic writing. The English Journal, 77(6), 57-58.

    Rittel, H. W. J., & Webber, M. M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy Sciences, 4(2), 155–169.

    Sharples, M. (1999). How we write : writing as creative design (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203019900

    Waltuck, B. A. (2012). Characteristics of complex systems. The Journal for Quality & Participation, 34(4), 13–15.

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  • Podcast: Spending review, Tooling Up, REF, students at work

    Podcast: Spending review, Tooling Up, REF, students at work

    This week on the podcast we examine the government’s spending review and what it means for higher education. How will the £86bn R&D commitment translate into real-terms funding, and why was education notably absent from the Chancellor’s priorities?

    Plus we discuss the Post-18 Project’s call to fundamentally reshape HE policy away from market competition, the startling new REF rules, and the striking rise in student term-time working revealed by the latest Student Academic Experience Survey.

    With Stephanie Harris, Director of Policy at Universities UK, Ben Vulliamy, Executive Director at the Association of Heads of University Administration, Michael Salmon, News Editor at Wonkhe, and presented by Mark Leach, Editor-in-Chief at Wonkhe.

    Tooling up: Building a new economic mission for higher education

    Investing for the long term often loses out to pensioner power

    What’s in the spending review for higher education

    The student experience is beyond breaking point

    How to assess anxious, time-poor students in a mass age

    REF is about institutions not individuals

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  • University spending and cost recovery, 2023-24

    University spending and cost recovery, 2023-24

    If you are the kind of person who sits down to read analysis of the latest available TRAC (officially, Transparent Approach to Costing) data the last thing you would expect would be cautious optimism.

    The sector, after all, is circling the financial drain – and when you can read press releases from unions and sector representative bodies that say fundamentally the same thing you could feel confident that this is the situation.

    Much of what we’ve recently read in the press is about the impacts of measures taken to address this financial peril – course closures, job cuts, changes in terms and conditions, and a retreat from spending plans on everything from maintenance to recruitment.

    And what the latest TRAC tells us is that these measures are working.

    Who turned on the light?

    To be clear, it’s not time to quit lobbying for a better funding settlement.

    Based on 2023-24 submissions from 128 institutions in England and Northern Ireland the sector has an aggregate deficit of £2,003m – down substantially from £2,854m in 2022-23. The sector has made savings of more than £800m between two years – no mean feat where costs are rising and the value of income is falling.

    What’s going on under the hood is that institutions are getting better at recovering the costs of things they are funded to do – 95.7 per cent of costs were recovered in 2023-24, up from 93.6 per cent in 2022-23. Costs still exceed income (they have done since the pandemic) but the direction of travel is promising – providers are generating more income (up 5.8 per cent to £44,508m) while limiting increases in costs (up 3.5 per cent to £46,511m).

    This is good news, but counterintuitive. We know that staff costs are rising (there was an annual pay uplift, and pensions spending has increased substantially for those providers involved in TPS), we know that the cost of doing business (everything from maintenance to logistics to consumables is rising). And TRAC confirms this – staff costs are up 6.4 per cent, other operating costs are up 4.7 per cent, on last year.

    There are savings in the costs of finance (such as interest payments) – these have fallen 13.3 per cent over last year, though this does not make a huge contribution to overall spending.

    MSI (coming on like a seventh sense)

    We do, however, need to talk about the margin for sustainability and investment (MSI). It’s the most controversial part of the TRAC specification, and when you tell people that universities need to have at least some money for non-income generating fripperies like student support and estates maintenance within any calculation of the cost of doing business they will lose their minds.

    The calculation is done by institution and is based on an average of three years of data and three years of projections (the nerd in me wants to be clear that these are based on Earnings Before Interest Taxation Depreciation and Amortisation – EBITDA) expressed as a proportion of full economic costs. In 2022-23 this was £3,770m (8.4 per cent of FEC), in 2023-24 this was £3,548 (7.6 per cent of FEC) for the sector as a whole.

    The effect here is that the total costs of running a university (FEC plus MSI) looks lower than it did last year. This is more evidence of savings over multiple years – cutting spending on maintenance, sustainability, and student services. This will make cost recovery and the deficit look better: it doesn’t explain all of the improvements this year but it explains some of them.

    The document provides a fuller list of institutional decisions that would have an impact on the MOS calculation – inflationary pressures, a (regulator advocated) caution in recruitment income growth and research activity growth, variability in forecasts as more institutions design in large changes of focus to plans for future spending, and the usual weirdnesses around pension provisions.

    Spend less, earn more

    So institutions are making cuts, and look financially healthier for it. But there is still an overall deficit, and if cuts and efficiencies are the only answer to financial constraints there is a long and painful road left to walk.

    Within the overall £2,003m deficit, the £1,693m deficit on publicly funded teaching is a major contributing factor: for every £100 a university spends on teaching home students, it receives £89.20 from the public purse. This varies, as we will see, by the type of institution in question and what else it gets up to. In real terms income is actually up slightly (a slight rise in the number of students), but it costs more to pay staff and to do all the other things that teaching requires.

    Conversely non-publicly funded teaching (all overseas students, and some self-funded home students) has a 143.1 per cent recovery rate, generating at a £3,232m surplus. The recovery rate is actually down marginally on last year, but the overall income from this source is up by 7.8 per cent (to £10,727m).

    Research has never had a good recovery rate – we’re now down to 66 per cent for 2023-24, from 68.5 per cent the previous year, and again there’s substantial differences by provider type. Again we can point to staff costs and operating costs rising as the reason, but we should also recall that most publicly funded research returns 80 per cent, and some research has no income attached at all.

    We should also note that other (income generating) activities like catering and accommodation run a small deficit, while other non-commercial activity (investments, donations, endowments) have an on-paper surplus.

    Peer pressure

    While the sector level figures are useful, they disguise a lot of diversity in the sector. We still – in 2025 – do not get institutional TRAC data, which would genuinely be useful for understanding where providers have costs that are substantially higher than comparators.

    Instead, we are back with groups A-F:

    • Group A: Institutions with a medical school that get 20 per cent or more of their total income from research (pretty much the Russell Group)
    • Group B: Other institutions with research income constituting 15 per cent or more of all income (largely the big, research intensive, traditional universities that sit outside of the Russell Group).
    • Group C: Research income between 5 and 15 per cent of all income (larger and research focused post-92 providers with some pre-92s mixed in)
    • Group D: Research income less than 5 per cent of a total income greater than £150m (Other big post-92 providers)
    • Group E: Research income less than 5 per cent of a total income less than £150m (the rest of the traditional universities, plus specialist providers)
    • Group F: Specialist music and arts institutions (as you might expect)

    Here’s what they all spend money on, as a proportion of total expenditure:

    [Full screen]

    And here’s the proportion of costs they recover on each kind of spending:

    [Full screen]

    And here’s what happens when you drill down into research:

    [Full screen]

    It’s not usually a good idea to make blanket statements about sector finances – what’s true for one university is generally not true for another. But in this case the generality is valuable – it highlights that the problems facing the sector are less to do with autonomous decisions and more to do with the overall financial settlement. Individual, provider action is clearly helping the situation. But it won’t be enough.

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