Tag: Stop

  • As men stop going to college, women have now overtaken them in graduate and professional degrees

    As men stop going to college, women have now overtaken them in graduate and professional degrees

    by Jon Marcus, The Hechinger Report
    January 20, 2026

    WATERTOWN, Mass. — Amanda Leef remembers thinking for the first time about becoming a veterinarian when she was 4 and found a garter snake in her Michigan backyard.

    “I think every girl goes through a phase of wanting to be a vet,” Leef said.

    For her, it wasn’t just a phase. Now, at 48, she co-owns her own bustling veterinary practice, Heal Veterinary Clinic, in this Boston suburb. 

    All seven veterinarians here are women. So is the large team of vet techs, and the entire rest of the 22-member medical staff.

    “In really broad generalities, I think women are more interested in the emotional and empathetic side of things than men are,” Leef said, sitting on the floor of an examination room with one of her patients, an affectionate, white-furred golden retriever named Cypress.

    For that and other reasons, women studying veterinary medicine now outnumber men by four to one. 

    It’s not just veterinary school. The number of women has surpassed the number of men in law school, medical school, pharmacy school, optometry school and dental school.

    Women in the United States now earn 40 percent more doctoral degrees overall, and nearly twice as many master’s degrees, as men, according to the U.S. Department of Education — a trend transforming high-end work. 

    This is no longer some distant statistical abstraction. Americans can see it when they take their pets to the vet or their kids to the dentist, need a lawyer or an eye exam, see a therapist or pick up a prescription.

    The dramatic shift in who is being trained for these fields is partly because more women are going into them. But it’s also the result of a steady slide in the number of men enrolling in graduate and professional schools. And while that may be elevating women, it’s affecting the nation’s economic competitiveness and even the point at which people get married and have children.

    “Having all students represented and engaged in graduate study ensures that we have healthy communities and families and a vital economy,” said Chevelle Newsome, president of the Council of Graduate Schools.

    Related: Interested in innovations in higher education? Subscribe to our free biweekly higher education newsletter.

    Graduate schools — including the 460 Newsome represents — have their own motive for wanting more men to enroll. They’re facing new threats from declining international enrollment, impending federal borrowing limits for graduate study and a public backlash against the high cost and uneven returns of graduate degrees.

    The main reason women have overtaken men in graduate school, however, is that more women than men are earning the undergraduate degrees required to go on to advanced study. 

    “Women certainly still see education in terms of upward mobility,” said Lisa Greenhill, chief organizational health officer at the American Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges, whose job includes trying to diversify veterinary medicine. “Men have a lot more options. They feel like they don’t have to go to a four-year program or a graduate program.”

    The number of men enrolled as undergraduates in college nationwide has dropped by nearly a quarter of a million, or 4 percent, just since 2020, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reports. 

    Women now account for about 60 percent of undergraduate enrollment. Nearly half of women aged 25 to 34 have bachelor’s degrees, compared to 37 percent of men, according to the Pew Research Center.

    “Men aren’t seeing higher education as valuable,” said Newsome. Many go into the trades or take other jobs straight out of high school to begin immediately earning a wage, forgoing the need to spend time in or money on college. Even men who do get undergraduate degrees may not see the value in continuing beyond them, she said.

    The effects of this have been stark and swift.

    The number of women earning law degrees passed the number of men in 2019, figures from the American Bar Association, or ABA, show; while only four of the law schools ranked among the 20 most prestigious by U.S. News & World Report had more women than men in 2016, women now outnumber men at 18 of them, according to the nonprofit law student news site JURIST. 

    Related: Trump’s attacks on DEI may hurt men in college admission

    That’s already having a real-world impact. By 2020, the ABA says, the majority of general lawyers working for the federal government were women, and by 2023, the majority of associates at law firms were.

    In medical schools, the number of women also overtook the number of men in 2019. Today, 55 percent of future doctors are women, up from 48 percent in 2015, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges, or AAMC.

    Women already make up significantly larger proportions of residents in specialties including endocrinology, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, family medicine and psychiatry.

    Women also outnumber men by three to one in doctoral programs in psychology, and by nearly four to one in master’s programs, the American Psychological Association reports. They make up 55 percent of graduates of dental schools, and 72 percent in pediatric dentistry, according to the American Dental Association. 

    More than seven out of 10 students in schools of optometry are women, the Association of Schools and Colleges of Optometry says. And at pharmacy schools, women constitute two-thirds of students working toward master’s degrees and 56 percent of those seeking doctorates, statistics from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy show.

    There are still more men than women in doctoral and master’s degree programs in business, engineering, math and the physical sciences. But women make up substantial majorities of graduate enrollment in health sciences, public administration, education, social and behavioral sciences and biological and agricultural sciences, according to the Council of Graduate Schools.

    While this represents impressive progress for women, the declining number of men enrolling in graduate programs is bad news for universities and colleges that offer them, for some patients in the health care system and for the economy.

    That’s because the growing number of women going to graduate and professional schools can’t continue forever to outpace the decline in the number of men. Total graduate enrollment at private, nonprofit colleges and universities was already down this fall, the Clearinghouse reports. 

    Related: Football fantasy: Colleges add sports to bring men, but it doesn’t always work

    That’s a problem made worse by visa restrictions and cuts to federal research funding, which have helped reduce the number of international students coming to the United States for graduate study by 12 percent, according to the Institute of International Education. 

    New federal loan limits scheduled to take effect next year are widely expected to further eat into graduate school enrollment. The changes will cap borrowing at $100,000 for graduate students and $200,000 for those in professional programs. That’s much less than the $408,150 the AAMC says it costs to get a medical degree from a private, nonprofit university or the $297,745 from a public one. The association of medical colleges projects a national shortage of as many as 124,000 physicians by 2034.

    The price of getting a graduate degree has more than tripled since 2000, according to the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Graduate degrees have become a critical revenue source for universities, which take in about $20 billion a year from master’s programs alone, a separate analysis, by the right-leaning think tank the American Enterprise Institute, calculates.

    Students of all genders are increasingly questioning the return on that investment. Nearly 40 percent of prospective graduate students say graduate programs that cost more than $10,000 a year are too expensive, a new survey by the enrollment management consulting firm EAB finds. Payoffs vary widely, making some graduate degrees “a potentially high-risk investment,” the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce has concluded. 

    The proportion of Americans 25 and older with master’s degrees or higher has fallen since 2000, from first in the world to 24th, according to the World Bank, while the percentage of those with doctoral degrees has dropped during that period from first to seventh.

    “That is a huge concern, when you think about where economies are going,” said Claudia Buchmann, an Ohio State University sociologist who studies this issue and is coauthor of the book “The Rise of Women.” “If we’re trying to compete on a global level, the fact that men’s college-going rates are so stagnant means we can’t fix this problem until we get more men.”

    Related: Even as women outpace men in graduating from college, their earnings remain stuck

    Men are, after all, half the nation’s labor force. And while some graduate degrees may not pay off, many of them do, substantially. People with advanced degrees are also much less likely to be unemployed.

    “When you think about global economic competitiveness for the United States — despite the skepticism that’s out there — education and training are still the keys to good jobs,” Buchmann said. Falling behind by that measure “is doing damage to men in this country.”

    But experts worry that the gender shift is self-perpetuating. Men may be put off by what they see as the “feminization” of professions in which they now are the minority, research by the veterinary medical colleges association concluded. 

    “I’m not seeing a national effort to say we need to change this,” Buchmann said. “If anything, the opposite is true.” 

    Graduate school leaders say the most effective efforts at reversing this trend are at the undergraduate level. “A lot of the effort from the graduate community has been to reach down and support those projects,” said Newsome, who was formerly dean of graduate studies at California State University, Sacramento. Universities also are encouraging employers to sponsor graduate education for male employees, she said.

    The effects of this widening gender divide are not just economic. New studies show that growing gender disparities in education can affect relationships. Marriage rates have fallen as levels of education rise, according to research from Iowa State University; each additional year of schooling reduces by about 4 percentage points the likelihood that someone between 25 and 34 is married. The proportion of Americans in that age bracket who are married has declined from 80 percent in 1970 to 38 percent today.

    Related: Universities and colleges search for ways to reverse the decline in the ranks of male students

    “When folks are looking for partners, there’s a desire to find someone economically comparable,” said Greenhill, of the veterinary medical colleges association. Added Buchmann, at Ohio State: “A lot of masculine norms are about being the breadwinner of the family. If the woman is the principal breadwinner, that presents not just economic challenges, but challenges to make marriages work.”

    More-educated women are also more likely to delay or forgo having children, according to separate research from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

    Back at her veterinary clinic, Amanda Leef makes the rounds, checking in on a dog getting his teeth cleaned and a pair of kittens waiting to be adopted. 

    Only one male veterinarian has ever applied to work there, Leef said. He was hired, but eventually left to go into research.

    “It does change the personality of a clinic” to be made up of only women, she said. “A staff that’s diverse is more accessible to a broader range of people. I just think the world is better with greater gender diversity.”

    Contact writer Jon Marcus at 212-678-7556, [email protected] or jpm.82 on Signal.

    This story about higher education and men was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our higher education newsletter. Listen to our higher education podcast.

    This <a target=”_blank” href=”https://hechingerreport.org/women-far-outnumber-men-in-law-school-med-school-vet-school-and-other-professional-programs/”>article</a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https://hechingerreport.org”>The Hechinger Report</a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.<img src=”https://i0.wp.com/hechingerreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/cropped-favicon.jpg?fit=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”>

    <img id=”republication-tracker-tool-source” src=”https://hechingerreport.org/?republication-pixel=true&post=114073&amp;ga4=G-03KPHXDF3H” style=”width:1px;height:1px;”><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https://hechingerreport.org/women-far-outnumber-men-in-law-school-med-school-vet-school-and-other-professional-programs/”, urlref: window.location.href }); } } </script> <script id=”parsely-cfg” src=”//cdn.parsely.com/keys/hechingerreport.org/p.js”></script>

    Source link

  • Morgan State says cut the cameras, stop the presses

    Morgan State says cut the cameras, stop the presses

    Sourcing is one of the most foundational skills any journalist learns. But at Morgan State University, the student press is effectively barred from speaking to faculty or staff without prior approval. In other words, for student journalists writing about their own university, basic sourcing is banned unless exceptions are made at the whim of an administrator.

    MSU has historically encouraged media to coordinate requests for such interviews through its Office of Public Relations and Strategic Communications. But on Nov. 13, OPRSC Director Larry Jones escalated the university’s suggestion into a demand in an email to the school community, specifically targeting student media with new requirements.

    Now reporters from The MSU Spokesman, BEAR TV, and WEAA 88.9 FM must clear all interviews involving the university or its operations with the OPRSC. Even more astonishingly, the same rule applies even if the interview request doesn’t directly relate to university matters, but nonetheless occurs on campus.

    Journalism doesn’t come with a permission slip.

    The new directive didn’t stop there. Any filming not sponsored by the university that takes place on campus is now subject to a “comprehensive review and approval process” by the university’s communications office.

    FIRE’s Student Press Freedom Initiative teamed up with the Society of Professional Journalists to remind MSU of the student press’s rights to speak to sources and report on campus-related news. It should not have to be said, but journalism doesn’t come with a permission slip.

    Questions unasked

    The plain language of MSU’s policy prevents student journalists from merely asking school-affiliated sources to answer questions, even though such requests are themselves protected expression. The policy suppresses this speech before it can even occur — a textbook example of prior restraint, which the Supreme Court has called “the most serious and least tolerable infringement” on free speech.

    A university afraid of questions is a university afraid of answers. 

    Questions unasked are questions unanswered. Faculty and student employees, who would speak in their private capacity on topics of public concern, have the right to share their views. If public university employees don’t present themselves as representing the university, and are speaking about newsworthy issues, their statements are generally protected speech. MSU can tell employees not to speak on behalf of the university, but it can’t issue a blanket ban on employees’ ability to speak with the press. Now, however, faculty and staff cannot offer their own opinions in response to a student media request.

    These restrictions are rarely valid, which is why many of the colleges and universities that SPFI has contacted have rolled back such policies. But MSU is not one of them, at least not yet. And this is really not a good look because a university afraid of questions is a university afraid of answers.

    B-roll blackout 

    MSU pulls campus filming into its restrictive policy, too. Both professional and student newsrooms across the country gather video footage to support their storytelling, a practice that is increasingly common due to the widespread availability of smartphones and social media. B-roll, or supplementary video footage used to add context to a story — such as an establishing shot of the university campus or a scene of students studying in the library — cannot be filmed at all if the shots include any of MSU’s outdoor areas, at least not without OPRSC approval. The same goes for filmed interviews. 

    Morgan State University: Public Calls on Morgan State University to Punish Faculty for Charlie Kirk Comments

    The public has called on Morgan State University to discipline faculty for exercising their free speech rights when commenting on public issues.


    Read More

    But breaking news doesn’t wait to happen until an administrator has reviewed and approved a film request. Open, outdoor areas of a university are generally public fora, where student expression is at its most protected. Instead of enhancing students’ newsgathering or teaching them how to be better reporters, the school is instead delaying, if not outright suppressing, multimedia journalistic efforts along with faculty interviews. 

    By targeting the student press specifically, MSU is sending a clear message that it doesn’t want its student journalists addressing questions about important campus issues to those most personally affected by them. That message runs counter to the very fundamentals of journalism. The result, possibly by design, will be that many stories will likely die on the vine for lack of sunlight. And even for those that survive, they’d better not include video footage unless an administrator signs off first. That’s not media policy. It’s message control.

    Source link

  • State AGs launch third lawsuit seeking to stop Trump’s H-1B fee

    State AGs launch third lawsuit seeking to stop Trump’s H-1B fee

    This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.

    Dive Brief:

    • A group of 20 states filed a lawsuit Friday alleging that President Donald Trump’s proclamation implementing a $100,000 fee on new H-1B skilled worker visas is unlawful, and should be vacated and set aside.
    • The plaintiffs in California v. Noem, each of them being an attorney general for a Democratic state, claimed that the fee is arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, and fails to adhere to that law’s procedural requirements. The complaint alleged the administration exceeded statutory authority and usurped congressional authority over immigration and revenue collection.
    • Friday’s complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts is at least the third such lawsuit challenging Trump’s H-1B policy. Other challenges include a California lawsuit filed by several unions, industry groups and other co-plaintiffs, as well as a challenge filed in Washington, D.C., by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

    Dive Insight:

    California and Massachusetts are the lead state plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which alleged several anticipated negative effects could result from Trump’s proclamation. The complaint identified public colleges, schools and healthcare systems as entities whose operations are particularly threatened by the $100,000 fee.

    Illinois, for example, alleged that the new fee “effectively eliminated” the Chicago Public Schools’ use of H-1B visas to fill roles such as those in bilingual and special education. Maryland similarly said a loss of access to the visas would pose a “grave risk” to classroom staffing in its Baltimore City Public Schools district.

    The plaintiffs alleged that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s authority to assess fees in connection with H-1B visas is limited to levels that are commensurate with agency costs and that the $100,000 fee “bears no connection to any costs” borne by immigration and customs authorities.

    “The Trump Administration thinks it can raise costs on a whim, but the law says otherwise,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a press release announcing the lawsuit. “We are going to court to defend California’s residents and their access to the world-class universities, schools, and hospitals that make Californians proud to call this state home.”

    Trump issued the proclamation imposing the new fee in September. At the time, the president justified the decision by noting “systemic abuse” of the H-1B program that “has undermined both our economic and national security.” Trump also criticized employers, saying some abused the visa program to the disadvantage of American citizens.

    The proclamation spawned confusion for participating employers and an array of questions, some of which the government addressed in an October regulatory update. The announcement noted that employers could pay the fee at a Treasury Department website and clarified that it would not be applied to petitions requesting an amendment, change of status or extension of stay for noncitizens who are inside the U.S., so long as the request is granted by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

    In a blog post, law firm Fragomen said employers and foreign nationals “should stay on top of developments in the lawsuits because court orders, government guidance, or both could mean new instructions with little notice.”

    Source link

  • Stop Blaming AI. Start Preparing Students for Work

    Stop Blaming AI. Start Preparing Students for Work

    AI isn’t the only reason new graduates can’t get a job, but it is changing the job market they’re entering. Economic uncertainty and a surplus of college graduates are contributing far more to high unemployment among young degree holders than job-thieving robots.

    A recent Federal Reserve analysis showed that the unemployment gap between high school and college graduates has been narrowing since the 2008 recession and now sits at around 2.5 percentage points, down from an average of five percentage points from roughly the 1980s to early 2000s. The National Association of Colleges and Employers’ 2026 Job Outlook Survey found that employers expect hiring for the Class of 2026 to remain flat. Next year’s job market likely won’t improve for college graduates.

    But even though huge corporations like Amazon, Target and Klarna say they are laying off tens of thousands of employees because of AI, they do not represent the majority of employers. Like the rest of us, most companies are still figuring out AI. In the NACE survey, nearly 59 percent of employers said they are not planning to or are unsure whether they’ll augment entry-level jobs with AI, and just 25 percent said they’re currently discussing it.

    Meanwhile, in a recent Substack post, economist and CUNY Graduate Center professor Paul Krugman argued it’s too soon for AI to have such a drastic impact on unemployment for college-educated workers; instead, he blamed the crummy job market on tariffs, uncertainty in the economy and even DOGE cuts flooding the job market with laid-off, educated federal workers.

    These market challenges coincide with intensifying pressure from the federal government and the general public for colleges to show that their degrees are valuable. Just this week, the Department of Education rolled out a new feature in the Free Application for Federal Student Aid alerting students if the institutions they’ve applied to produce graduates who earn less than people with just high school degrees.

    While the state of the economy is out of higher education’s control, institutions should heed employer calls for graduates with real-world experience. Career-ready students will be able to adapt to the evolving world of work and see that their degrees are worth the investment. The most promising response is for colleges to embrace experiential learning.

    A survey of employers released this week by the American Association of Colleges and Universities showed that college graduates who are proficient in applying knowledge to the real world and who understand teamwork are the most likely to be hired. Students agree: They cited paid internships and building stronger connections with employers as the top things colleges can do to help them get career-ready.

    Focusing on work-based learning will achieve two things: get students the real-world experience employers demand and set them up for long-term economic success. The college premium may be eroding, but it persists. And while high school graduates might be getting jobs more quickly than recent college graduates, those with degrees stay employed longer once they do find jobs.

    Regional economies will benefit from graduates with real-world experience, too. Students who participate in internships or apprenticeships are more likely to find local jobs after they graduate. Studies even show that underemployed graduates, those working jobs that don’t require a college degree, land in roles with higher intrinsic value—think less physical labor, more respectful treatment and better opportunities for skill development.

    Some institutions are further along than others. A program at Harvey Mudd College pairs undergraduates early in their degrees with alumni around the country for summer job shadows. Others target career support to individual student groups, such as neurodiverse students and veterans. Virginia recently announced a partnership with Handshake to provide each student at a public institution at least one form of work-based learning in an effort to keep talent in the state. And the Delaware Workforce Development Board gave the University of Delaware’s Lerner College of Business and Economics a grant to create a yearlong co-op program with businesses across the state, partly to “keep homegrown talent here in Delaware,” the chair of the board said.

    The economic forces impacting the job market aren’t going away, and neither is AI’s transformational influence on how work gets done. The solution for colleges is simple: Students need real-world experience and employers are explicit about wanting to hire graduates who have it. Colleges must start building employer relationships and embedding experiential learning into the curriculum now. The institutions that get it right will be the ones whose graduates never question the value of their degree.

    Sara Custer is editor in chief at inside Higher Ed.

    Source link

  • Let’s stop talking about problems as if they can’t be solved

    Let’s stop talking about problems as if they can’t be solved

    Doesn’t it seem as if the world gets more complicated every day? It is difficult to keep track of all the global calamities, let alone make sense of them.

    When News Decoder came into being 10 years ago, it was to combat one thing: the problem of too much news and information in a world of constant streaming and posting and too little context and understanding of what all this news and information means. News Decoder Founder Nelson Graves called this a “knowledge gap.”

    But 10 years on, this gap is even more difficult to close. That’s because the problems have metastasized and each one seems more unsolvable — climate change, disease, hunger, genocide, racial hatred, homelessness, mass unemployment. How can you work to solve each problem when they are all interconnected? The result is widespread despair caused by the belief that these problems are unsolvable.

    We need an antidote to this despair.

    It is no longer enough to close the knowledge gap. We need to bust the myth that problems are unsolvable, when really they are just overwhelming. And they are overwhelming because too often the news and information young people get focuses on obstacles to solutions — the inability of governments and organizations to work together, and politicians who prioritize winning elections at all cost. Too often, media focuses on the same problems in the same places so young people don’t see the solutions that can be found in places media ignore.

    Determination, not despair

    Once young people see problems as solvable, they can find the energy to work towards those solutions. That’s why solutions journalism has become a cornerstone of our educational mission.

    We teach students to apply a critical, curious lens to the media and the world around them — continually questioning, taking nothing at face value. And at the same time we show them how to find the solutions and the people working on those solutions all over the world. In doing so they might just see that the problem in their community that seemed unsolvable is being tackled elsewhere and those solutions can be applied back home.

    Consider the story we published on Monday by University of Toronto Fellow Natasha Yu Chia Hu. In looking at the overwhelming and connected problems of food insecurity, poverty, obesity and diabetes she focused on a program New York City has launched to make the foods young people get in school healthier, and how other places around the world are tackling the problems in similar ways.

    At News Decoder, students don’t just read about these solutions, they seek out the stories themselves. In the United States, student Aiden Huber explored the problem of food deserts. In Switzerland, Liv Egli explored the disconnect between environmentally-minded consumers and the beef they eat. In France, Clover Choi looked at the connection between war and food shortages. 

    And they engage in thoughtful conversations on these topics with experts and with their peers in other countries through our school-to-school cross-border webinars and our Decoder Dialogues.

    From disempowerment to agency

    By encouraging global perspectives and enabling cross-continental exchange, by nurturing their voices and giving them a platform to communicate with global audiences, we transform young people’s sense of disempowerment into agency.

    Going into our second decade, News Decoder wants to do this in more ways.

    We want to meet educators where they are and within their real-world constraints and opportunities to help them implement experiential learning and AI-resilient methodologies. This means more than listening; it means an active partnership.

    We want to expand our reach to enable as many educators and young people as possible to benefit from our approach and build a truly diverse global community.

    We intend to find new ways to diversify our network of correspondents, emphasising those in Global South nations to enable us to explore solutions in places the mainstream media ignores. And we want to create new ways for young people, journalists and experts to connect across borders — through live virtual roundtables and in-person workshops.

    Working together across borders

    In a world where so many laudable nonprofit organizations are vying for funds, we need to forge partnerships with like-minded organizations and share our knowledge and expertise in ways that benefit everyone working in the field.

    At News Decoder, we keep our mission foremost: Informing, connecting and empowering young people to be engaged citizens and changemakers locally, nationally and globally. We need funds to do that, but fundraising isn’t our mission. Where we can work with other organisations to fulfill our mission and where we can share our resources towards that purpose, we will.

    We have been doing this all along. With the University of Toronto we take on journalists-in-training and give them a platform to report on important, complicated issues. With The Environment and Human Rights Academy at the European School of Brussels II, we created a teaching curriculum for climate change that educators can implement in their classes, complemented by a 3-day in-person teacher training workshop. With Prisa Media of Spain and some seven other organizations, we joined WePod, a cross-border project to support the growth and sustainability of the European podcasting ecosystem. And with Mobile Stories in Sweden, we helped create open-access resources — video tutorials, articles and educators’ guides — to help young people report and write trustworthy news stories grounded in ethical practice.

    All this is part of our desire to create a global community of young people who refuse to be discouraged by news and who instead use news to drill down into problems to identify solutions and work towards those solutions — whether that means pushing their government representatives to pass laws, voting out representatives who foment division, pressuring corporations to change their ways or using social media to rally the people around them to fight for change.

    Moving forward, we’re making our educational experiences accessible to more young people by expanding open-access materials and creating public engagement forums. We’ll continue to adapt our classroom work to individual school needs while prioritizing communities where we can make the greatest difference: under-resourced or under-represented groups.

    Together, as a global community, we can fight the despair that comes with the myth that problems are too overwhelming to solve.

    Anyone who has worked with young people knows this: When they are inspired and energized, it is hard for anyone to stand in their way.

    Source link

  • UC to Stop Funding Systemwide Postdoc Program

    UC to Stop Funding Systemwide Postdoc Program

    To date, the system has spent $162 million on fellows’ salaries, averaging about $7.36 million per year.

    Juliana Yamada/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

    Starting next fall, the University of California system office will no longer pay for the UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, a fellowship established in 1984 to encourage more women and minority Ph.D.s to pursue academic careers.

    The fellowship program, available at all 10 UC campuses and three national laboratories, has inspired numerous copycats at other state universities, including at the University of Maryland, the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities, the University of Michigan and Pennsylvania State University. But its focus on recruiting diverse candidates has also been criticized by conservatives who claim it’s a pipeline for young hires with radical leftist politics.

    The UC system office will stop providing financial support for the program beginning with fellows hired after summer 2025, a system spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed. Since 2003, the UC system office has paid the $85,000 salaries of PPFP fellows for their first five years on the faculty; then the UC campus where they are employed takes over. To date, the system has spent $162 million on PPFP faculty salaries, averaging about $7.36 million per year.

    “Due to the severe budget constraints currently facing UC, the PPFP faculty hiring incentive is sunsetting as of fall 2025,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “While the University will continue to provide five years of salary support to PPFP fellows hired by summer 2025 and in earlier years, no new incentives will be provided going forward. Campuses will still be able to hire PPFP fellows as part of their normal search and hiring processes, but the additional financial contribution from the incentive program will no longer be available.”

    The University of California system is facing a decline in state funding and pressure from the Trump administration to implement a number of changes that weaken or abolish diversity, equity and inclusion practices. In March, former system president Michael Drake announced a systemwide hiring freeze and other cost-saving measures. At the same time, the system board prohibited campus officials from asking job candidates to submit a diversity statement as part of the hiring process. In August, the Trump administration demanded that the University of California, Los Angeles, pay a $1.2 billion fine for allegedly failing to address antisemitism on campus, as well as overhaul numerous policies related to admissions, hiring, athletics, scholarships, gender identity and discrimination.

    In a thread posted to Bluesky, Sarah Roberts, a professor of information studies, gender studies and labor studies at UCLA, called the PPFP program a “jewel in the crown for faculty development and recruitment at the University of California.”

    “To my mind, not only is this a direct attack by a UC central admin content to capitulate and emulate the federal position that arrived via extortion letter, it is part of a much larger plan, congruent with UC central admin, of weakening and eliminating faculty governance and power,” Roberts wrote about the decision to end funding for the program.

    Despite its origins, the PPFP no longer explicitly seeks women and minority candidates and instead considers applicants “whose life experiences and educational background would help to broaden the perspectives represented in the faculty of the University of California,” according to the website.

    This is a recent change; in 2024, the PPFP webpage included the tagline “advancing excellence through faculty diversity.” The criteria also stated that “faculty reviewers will evaluate candidates according to their academic accomplishments, the strength of their research proposal, and their potential for faculty careers that will contribute to diversity and equal opportunity through their teaching, research and service. Faculty reviewers also may consider the mentor’s potential to work productively with the candidate and commitment to equity and diversity in higher education.”

    The PPFP, and fellow-to-faculty programs at large, have drawn criticism from conservatives including John D. Sailer, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute who has written extensively on the programs. He believes they allow universities to recruit scholars who “embrace positions on the fringes of leftist politics.”

    “Ideological screening has downstream consequences for our sensemaking institutions,” Sailer wrote in a February article. “Ultimately, the fellow-to-faculty model pushes conformity across once-distinct academic fields. As the UC professor put it, ‘it erodes disciplinary boundaries,’ flattening all forms of inquiry into a discussion of race and oppression.”

    Source link

  • How to stop sounding like every other university

    How to stop sounding like every other university

    Today’s students quickly spot generic, rinse-and-repeat marketing from a university. Cut through the sameness slop and create a positioning strategy that actually connects.

    Higher education is at a crossroads. Enrollment is declining. Public perception is shrinking. And nearly every institution is saying the same thing: excellence, innovation, community.

    Meanwhile, students and families are asking tough questions about the real-world value of a degree. In this new reality, universities can no longer rely on tradition or reputation alone. To thrive, they need clarity and courage. And they need a positioning strategy that captures who they are—and why that matters.

    A strong positioning strategy doesn’t just shape marketing. It shapes culture, recruitment, retention, and reputation. It helps universities tell a truer story about themselves—and connect that story to the students, faculty, and partners who will carry it forward.

    Here are the six elements every successful university positioning strategy must include.

    1. Target your audiences carefully.

    A strong positioning strategy starts with targeting specific student subsets.

    Are you recruiting first-generation students or career changers? Honors scholars or working professionals? Local residents or international learners? Understanding who you’re trying to reach—and what drives their decisions—anchors every other element of your strategy.

    And don’t forget the people behind the scenes: faculty, staff, and donors. The best universities understand that attracting the right people internally is just as important as recruiting students externally.

    2. Focus the Geography of Your Recruitment

    Where will you focus your recruitment efforts? Know where your target audiences are —geographically and digitally —so you can reach them. Which regions, cities, or even online communities align best with your programs and brand?

    Now is the time to revisit your recruiting map. Shifts in demographics and enrollment trends mean yesterday’s strongholds may not be tomorrow’s growth markets.

    3. Build on Academic Strengths

    What academic programs will attract your target audiences? Identify your institution’s strengths and areas of expertise. The programs you offer need to align with your audience’s needs.

    Whether it’s a renowned nursing program, an emerging data science initiative, or a distinctive liberal arts approach, clarity here will shape everything else—your messaging, recruitment, and even partnerships.

    Then, make your offerings accessible through the pathways your target audiences need—undergraduate, graduate, online, hybrid, or evening programs. It is likely that students need different pathways, so be flexible here.

    4. Price with Intention

    Your pricing strategy should reflect your positioning. Are your audiences looking for value, accessibility, or prestige? There’s no one right answer, but there is a wrong one: misalignment.

    Align your tuition, scholarships, and financial aid strategy with your audiences and geography. A well-designed tuition calculator that delivers real-time estimates can make the difference between interest and enrollment.

    5. Prioritize Student Support

    Recruitment may fill your seats, but support keeps them filled.

    Universities that build cultures of belonging—through mentoring, mental health support, financial assistance, and strong academic advising—don’t just retain students. They create lifelong advocates.

    Is your first-year experience intentionally designed for retention? Do you proactively re-engage at-risk students? Do your clubs and organizations reflect the diversity of your student body? These increase the likelihood of success at your university.

    6. Create an Experience That Feels Alive

    Students don’t just want a degree—they want a life during those years.

    We hear it time and again: what ultimately draws students in is a sense of belonging, fun, and possibility. Your positioning should capture the energy of your campus and the spirit of your city.

    Show it. Don’t just say it. Make it clear that students like the ones you are targeting are having a great college experience.

    That emotional pull is often the difference between “accepted” and “enrolled.”

    Integration is the Secret to Success

    Each of these elements—audience, geography, programs, cost, support, and experience—needs to work together. Every decision in one area affects the other. When they are unaligned, your messaging will suffer.

    When your strategy is integrated and authentic, your university doesn’t just stand out. It stands for something.

    From Survival to Significance

    In a marketplace crowded with sameness, differentiation is the ultimate advantage.

    A powerful university positioning strategy gives you more than just messaging—it gives you momentum. It helps you attract the right students, engage the right partners, and chart a sustainable path forward.

    The question isn’t whether your university needs a positioning strategy. The question is: how bold are you willing to be?

    Source link

  • Judges Rule Trump Can’t Completely Stop SNAP Aid – The 74

    Judges Rule Trump Can’t Completely Stop SNAP Aid – The 74


    Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

    Two federal judges on Friday ruled against President Donald Trump’s move to suspend food stamp benefits starting November 1 amid the month-long government shutdown, with each noting contingency funding is available. 

    It’s unclear if the Trump administration plans an appeal or how quickly food assistance can flow to the 42 million Americans who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Sixteen million of them are children, putting pressure on schools to address their needs.

    U.S. District Judge John McConnell of Rhode Island ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture to distribute the funds in a timely manner using contingency money. 

    “SNAP benefits have never, until now, been terminated,” McConnell said, as reported in The Hill. “And the United States has in fact admitted that the contingency funds are appropriately used during a shutdown, and that occurred in 2019.”

    In a separate ruling, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani of Massachusetts gave the Trump administration until Monday to decide whether it will provide at least some food stamp benefits to recipients. She indicated the suspension of SNAP benefits is contrary to law. 

    She found fault with the defendants’ assertion that the U.S Department of Agriculture is prohibited from funding SNAP because Congress has not enacted new appropriations for the current fiscal year.

    “To the contrary, defendants are statutorily mandated to use the previously appropriated SNAP contingency reserve when necessary and also have discretion to use other previously appropriated funds,” she wrote. 

    Despite the judges’ rulings, many advocates say some kids will go hungry in November because the process for obtaining the aid consists of multiple steps — some of which have already been missed for those who receive help at the start of every month. 

    On October 28, more than 20 states, the District of Columbia, and three governors sued the USDA for suspending November’s SNAP benefits. They called the move unprecedented and illegal.

    “SNAP is one of our nation’s most effective tools to fight hunger, and the USDA has the money to keep it running,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, long embroiled in her own legal battle with the president, said in a statement. “There is no excuse for this administration to abandon families who rely on SNAP, or food stamps, as a lifeline. The federal government must do its job to protect families.”

    Gina Plata-Nino, interim director for SNAP at the Food Research & Action Center, said her organization encouraged the USDA to tap into its contingency and reserve funds to save children and families from going hungry. By missing this opportunity, at least some recipients will likely miss their allotment. 

    Plata-Nino said states were directed by federal officials on Oct. 10 to stop reporting critical data — a list of household eligibility and food stamp allocation — information they send directly to electronic benefit transfer contractors, who are key in distributing the aid. 

    “Even in the best-case scenario, if the judge says, ‘We rule in your favor and we demand that this happens right now’, and the Trump administration doesn’t appeal…the process of getting benefits into recipients’ accounts would take time,” she said. 

    Arlen Benjamin-Gomez, executive director of EdTrust New York, a statewide education policy and advocacy organization, said it’s clear that serious damage has already been done to what is an essential program. 

    “We know from what has happened so far with this administration that when they make announcements like this, it does have a direct impact on programs and the ability to sustain them,” she said. “For example, there was an announcement of federal cuts to Head Start very early on in the administration, and the program actually shut down. It’s still recovering. So, we can’t predict the chaos that is spread by this most recent effort to cut benefits.”

    Benjamin-Gomez praised New York for declaring a state of emergency on the matter: Gov. Kathy Hochul is committing an additional $65 million in new state funds for emergency food aid to support state food banks. But not all states will do the same.  

    Ian Coon, spokesperson for Alliance for Education, an independent, local education fund that supports Seattle Public Schools, said his organization has already earmarked funding to bridge the gap for those in need. 

    He said the Alliance decided in late October to fund $150,000 in gift cards to area food stores for families in crisis. He said school staff will help identify children in need and offer the assistance of $25, $50 or $100. The $150,000 comes from a reserve fund.  

    “We are fully aware it’s not a long-term solution, but we needed to do something,” Coon said. 

    Carolyn Vega, associate director of policy analysis for Share Our Strength, which runs No Kid Hungry, said her organization also does not predict an abrupt or smooth end to the suffering of American families who rely on these benefits. 

    “We are not holding our breath for the money to start flowing today,” she said. “Kids can’t wait: Families have to eat every single day. We know from our extensive work with schools that teachers already see kids show up to school hungry on Monday mornings. We can only imagine how much worse that would be if a family came in and were expecting to see benefits on Saturday and they did not. It’s an unbelievable strain for food banks. We know that schools will be an important resource for many families, but they can’t fill in the gap.”

    In fiscal year 2023, nearly 80% of SNAP households included either a child, an elderly person or a nonelderly individual with a disability, according to the USDA. About 39% of SNAP participants were children that year. 

    A statement on the federal agency’s website blames Senate Democrats for the shutdown. 

    “They can continue to hold out for healthcare for illegal aliens and gender mutilation procedures or reopen the government so mothers, babies, and the most vulnerable among us can receive critical nutrition assistance,” the statement read. 

    The department declined to comment on the judges’ rulings.


    Did you use this article in your work?

    We’d love to hear how The 74’s reporting is helping educators, researchers, and policymakers. Tell us how

    Source link

  • Enrollment Planning: Stop Chasing Student Leads

    Enrollment Planning: Stop Chasing Student Leads

    From Lead-Chasing to Mission-Aligned Enrollment

    I spent 16 years as an enrollment leader and another 10-plus years working with enrollment leaders. As a result, I’ve witnessed firsthand how the standard lead-generation model for building enrollment is failing institutions. 

    The promise is enticing: Your marketing agency delivers a list of thousands of names of prospective students, your enrollment team works the list, and students materialize. But this approach creates a vicious cycle that undermines everything mission-driven institutions stand for. It’s like the effects of taking steroids to enhance your athletic performance — you see short-term gains that appear to be unstoppable, but they ultimately take your money, identity, and health.  

    Here’s what I’ve learned about shifting from a lead-chasing mindset to a long-term perspective focused on building enrollment foundations that actually last.

    Why Lead-Generation Strategies Fail Mission-Driven Institutions

    Finding mission-aligned students requires more than asking your institution’s marketing agency to generate leads. The traditional model — buy bulk leads, work leads, generate students — seems efficient on paper. In practice, however, it produces low conversion rates, disengaged enrollment staff, escalating acquisition costs, and devastating attrition rates.

    The math alone should give you reason to pause. When you generate more leads, you need more enrollment personnel to work them. Now you have two major problems: low-converting prospects and mounting personnel costs. Your enrollment counselors spend their days chasing people who don’t understand your mission, don’t fit your institutional culture, and, if they do enroll, often disappear after a term or two (often because they become a lead for another institution).

    This isn’t just inefficient. It’s likely counterproductive to establishing your institution’s identity. Students recruited through generic lead generation don’t know anything about your institution or what it represents. They can’t articulate why your institution matters, which turns it into a commodity in their eyes. Students can simply ask “How long will it take?” and “How much will it cost?” and not fully realize that the college experience is about so much more than that. 

    Look Inward, Not Outward: The Moneyball Principle for Enrollment

    There’s a powerful scene in the movie “Moneyball” in which Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland A’s baseball team, tells his scouts: “If we think like the Yankees in here, we will lose to the Yankees out there.” The same principle applies to your enrollment strategy, particularly for online and adult learners.

    If you think like Grand Canyon University, Western Governors University, or Southern New Hampshire University when designing your enrollment strategies, you likely won’t win the enrollment game, and you’ll waste an extraordinary amount of money and time in the process. 

    Those institutions have built their models based on scale, national reach, and high-volume lead generation. They have the infrastructure, capital, and brand recognition to make that work. Your institution probably doesn’t, and it shouldn’t try to.

    Just as consumers often turn to unique restaurants and up-and-coming artists once the chain establishments and pop stars start to feel too ubiquitous and impersonal, prospective students are increasingly drawn to institutions that offer something distinctive and local. Niche markets can be extraordinarily powerful when you serve them authentically. They generate raving fans. They create word-of-mouth referrals. And they build communities that sustain themselves.

    Your competitive advantage isn’t going to come from outspending the national players. It can only come from your institution being exactly what it is, something that no other institution can be. It’s about attracting students who are attracted to your mission and vision. 

    Understanding the Complete New Student Journey

    Creating a mission-centric marketing strategy begins with understanding every aspect of how prospective students experience your institution: from the design of your logo the first time they see it through the response to their first communication, the cadence of subsequent touches, and the tone of every interaction.

    One of my greatest frustrations in how higher education operates is the request-for-information (RFI) process. We ask students to provide their information and then tell them to wait for someone to contact them. 

    Almost no other industry operates this way anymore. Imagine filling out a form on Amazon and receiving a message that says, “Thank you for your interest. Someone will call you within 48 hours to help you complete your purchase.” It’s absurd. Try it out for yourself. Request information from your institution and see what happens. 

    My advice is to move away from the “Thank you, someone will be in touch” message immediately. Create an instant post-RFI experience that welcomes students and allows them to explore right then and there. Give them immediate access to program information, faculty insights, student stories, and next steps. Let them self-serve while your enrollment team prepares for meaningful, high-value conversations with them.

    When students arrive at those conversations already informed and engaged, conversion rates improve dramatically and the students who enroll actually fit the university’s mission. Let’s also not forget that passionate graduates have historically led to alumni giving down the road. 

    Using Faculty as Your Most Credible Marketers

    Building a mission-centric enrollment strategy requires faculty involvement. In the age of large language models and content generated by artificial intelligence (AI), credible human voices matter more than ever. Prospective students can spot generic marketing copy instantly. What can’t be replicated is the authentic passion of a faculty member explaining why their discipline matters and how your institution approaches it differently.

    Your faculty are your best marketers, especially right now. They bring subject matter expertise, institutional knowledge, and genuine enthusiasm to your messaging. They can articulate your mission in ways that marketing agencies never will. When faculty are engaged in creating content, participating in virtual information sessions, and connecting with prospective students during the exploration phase, the return on investment is extraordinary.

    Embracing Cybernetics: Governance That Learns and Adapts

    If you haven’t read Robert Birnbaum’s “How Colleges Work,” I strongly recommend it. Birnbaum outlines four organizational models in higher education, and I can typically identify which model an institution operates under after just one interaction. I can definitely confirm it if I look at their historical enrollment data.

    For enrollment management specifically, I advocate for what Birnbaum calls the cybernetics model. Cybernetic systems are self-correcting. Teams gather feedback, learn from outcomes, and adjust their strategies accordingly. This stands in stark contrast to the way the political, bureaucratic, and collegial organizational models that often dominate campus decision-making operate.

    A cybernetic approach to enrollment planning means:

    • Creating governance structures in which teams have genuine authority to act
    • Establishing clear feedback loops among marketing, admissions, student success, and academic affairs
    • Using data to inform decisions rather than defend territories
    • Building accountability that’s linked to shared outcomes rather than departmental metrics
    • Adapting strategies based on what actually works, not what teams wish would work

    A cybernetic approach requires institutional leaders, particularly presidents and provosts, to take ownership of the enrollment vision and build governance bodies that align departmental goals with shared institutional goals. Cross-functional committees need decision-making power, not just advisory status. And planning must extend beyond annual cycles to capture multiyear trends and institutional transformation.

    Reallocating Budgets for Mission-Aligned Impact

    Shifting to a mission-driven enrollment strategy requires budget reallocation. You must move dollars away from lead volume activities and toward initiatives that create lasting impact, such as:

    • Faculty-driven enrollment strategies that showcase your distinctive strengths
    • Mission-driven search engine optimization (SEO) and generative engine optimization (GEO) strategies that capitalize on these distinctive strengths 
    • Content creation that tells your institutional story authentically
    • Relationship-building programs that deepen community connections
    • Course scheduling systems that ensure students can access the right courses at the right terms

    These investments usually don’t generate immediate returns in the same way that purchasing 10,000 leads might. But they compound over time. They build an institution’s reputation. They create the conditions for sustainable enrollment growth rather than the enrollment roller coaster that exhausts everyone involved.

    Key Takeaways

    • Lead-chasing produces shallow growth that fades quickly and corrodes an institution’s culture. The alternative isn’t to abandon growth. It’s to anchor growth in the institution’s actual identity and what it genuinely offers.
    • Mission-aligned enrollment requires a commitment to optimizing the entire new student journey, from first awareness through graduation and beyond. It demands faculty involvement, genuine differentiation, and governance structures capable of learning and adapting.
    • Gone are the days when institutions could buy leads, work the leads, and generate students. That approach leads to poor outcomes for everyone: low conversion rates, disengaged employees, escalating costs, and high attrition.
    • The institutions that thrive in the coming decade won’t be those that outspend their competitors on lead generation. They’ll be the ones that know exactly who they are, communicate it with clarity and conviction, and build enrollment systems worthy of their mission.

    Stop thinking like the Yankees. Start building on the foundation you already have.

    Let Archer Help You With Enrollment Planning

    In my years of experience, I’ve helped many institutions establish a strong enrollment strategy. And I’m far from alone in my expertise at Archer Education. Our full-service team partners with colleges and universities of all kinds to help them build and scale their capacities. 

    Is your institution ready to work with a collaborative partner who takes the time to get to know you, then makes custom recommendations based on their decades of experience? Reach out to us today! 

    Source link

  • Stop Labeling Students “First-Gen” (opinion)

    Stop Labeling Students “First-Gen” (opinion)

    New policy mandates force us to rethink how best to meet what the Boyer 2030 Commission termed “the equity-excellence imperative.” One way to pursue this goal is to consider the role played by first-generation student success initiatives, which continue to enjoy broad public support. In the current climate, higher ed may be forgiven a rush to establish centers or initiatives for first-generation student success, as many colleges and universities already have. But before we get to raising funds and creating logos, let’s pause and consider new ways to think about and organize such efforts to best meet the moment.

    To put it bluntly, what business is it of ours, or anyone’s, what a student’s parents’ educational attainment happens to be? The usual answer is that we inquire because we aim to foster upward social mobility, and because we know from research that students who are the first in their families to attend college do not succeed at the same cohort rates as so-called continuing-generation students. But I emphasize cohort rates because we are not talking about a group, defined by self-awareness and interaction, but indeed a cohort, defined by impersonal and ill-defined criteria. At the level of individuals and families, first-gen discourse presumes deficits, is intrusive and can be off-putting and condescending.

    Neither of your parents (you have two, right?) earned a bachelor’s degree?

    I’d venture that most who work with first-gen students would agree that there are enduring questions about how best to define who is and is not first-generation using one of several plausible definitions. And even after four decades of promotion, I think it’s fair to say that few students arrive on campus as self-conscious “first-gens,” however defined.

    Some imagine that they qualify if they are the first of their siblings to attend college. Others wonder, understandably, if a parent’s associate degree or years of college attendance not resulting in degree attainment substitutes for an earned bachelor’s degree. A few may even think, erroneously, that they qualify if they are the first in their family to attend a particular institution.

    And then there are the overriding problems of stigma and stereotype threat. Efforts to dispel negative connotations and instill pride notwithstanding—First!—most people can smell a rat when in the presence of Rodentia. While some minoritized students may find it a useful alternative to other, more vexing labels, many students wrestle with it, as they might with any label, especially in the absence of a related scholarship or other inducement. I used to regularly tell first-gens that the land-grant university to which they had matriculated was theirs, that it was made for them and that it was nice of them to let others use it, too. But such tricks of the trade are needed only because the reality, often stark, is so contrary.

    Instead of fighting a Sisyphean battle tainted by class bias, I suggest that we acknowledge that first-gen discourse defines students by a characteristic that is out of their control and that the label is troubling when applied to individual students. Consider that we have more control over almost every other way of identifying ourselves, including our gender and sexuality! Parents, guardians and other parental authorities are as close to a given as it gets, and to define one by a given is reductionist and objectifying.

    To help underscore the stakes involved, consider this thought experiment. What if we labeled students whose parents possess earned doctorates as “dockies” and awarded them membership in the honors program? Most would recoil at even the thought of it. We assume that dockies are privileged or at least not in need of privileged access to scarce resources. We imagine them as possessed of abundant social and cultural capital and a healthy amount of regular old capital, too. Why actively reproduce privilege?

    But let us immediately observe that such assumptions are just as potentially ill-founded for individual dockies as they are for individual first-gens. Ask a Ph.D.-holding parent of a neurodiverse child, of a drug-addicted child, a child with disabilities, a child prone to perfectionism, a child of mild ambition and so forth, and they are apt to share an earful. And let us acknowledge that dockies are often given access to scarce resources such as merit-based scholarships and extra help via supportive honors programs, and for legitimate reasons. For one, these students earn such considerations by virtue of their academic achievement. They also may need them to fulfill their considerable potential.

    The key distinction, then, is between how we relate to students as individuals and what we do to make our institutional practices and campus cultures accessible and just. But before saying more about that, I acknowledge that there is an entrenched cultural assumption in play. We hold that individuals are infinitely complex and of universal value, each unique and sacred. (I mean this exactly and empirically; no rhetorical flourish or exaggeration is involved.) Individual students are not, in this view, bearers of three or four defining categories, nor should we treat them as representatives of groups. That is called stereotypical thinking, and it leads to tokenism, and neither stereotypical thinking nor tokenism have ever been good things. Students have multiple identities, as we all do, and we should not presume which of them are most salient or assume that they are immutable or invariant.

    When, however, we turn attention to institutional and cultural realities—particularly to our college and university’s policies and practices, to campus values, norms and built environment and so forth—then, yes, by all means, dust off social science and humanities textbooks and deploy concepts, data and pertinent humanistic discourses that are needed to make sense of systems, contested histories, shared meanings and the like. Here is where centers for first-generation student success have their rightful place, as hubs for institutional reform, designed to bring into existence a higher education that meets students where they are, as we say.

    First-gen centers might support research into how students experience college life and in other ways help faculty, staff, administrators and graduate students working with undergraduate students to better understand and interact with them. (Three cheers for faculty meals in residence halls!) First-gen centers might facilitate integration of high-impact practices into curricula, rendering these no-longer-nice-to-haves affordable and accessible, and help banish class biases as revealed in diffuse condescension by the college-educated and well-heeled with respect to those thus othered and belittled. Let us put an end to arcane language used for the latent purpose of policing class distinctions and eliminate barriers of entry to STEM majors, which track already underresourced students into lower-paying professions, however otherwise socially vital and personally fulfilling.

    Colleges and universities cannot meet their missions in a democratic society unless they are shorn of institutionalized discrimination rooted in white supremacy, patriarchy, what the poet Adrienne Rich called “compulsory heterosexuality,” ableism, ageism, as well as discrimination against veterans and active-duty armed service members, students whose home countries are not the United States or for whom English is not their first language, students from rural communities, students from urban communities, students from tribal communities, students from foster homes, students who are first-gen as well as students who identify with one or more of the above and then some. Our to-do list is long and varied.

    First-gen discourse is, like most student success discourse, best suited for use by administrators. It is not usually the language of educators, nor should we foist it upon students themselves. To best aid students who are the first in their families to attend college, make higher education affordable, campuses welcoming, curricula efficient and effective. Facilitate transfer student success via inter-institutional peer tutoring, and in myriad similar ways remove the fences surrounding the ol’ ball field in the DEI social imaginary. Higher education may then serve the people, one individual at a time.

    Steven P. Dandaneau is an associate professor of sociology at Colorado State University. He is a former advisory board member for the Center for First-Generation Student Success, an initiative of NASPA: Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education and the Suder Foundation, and was recognized as a First Scholars First Generation Champion in 2018.

    Source link