Tag: University

  • Post-COVID University Surpluses (Deficits) | HESA

    Post-COVID University Surpluses (Deficits) | HESA

    Ok, everyone, buckle up. For I have been looking at university financial statements for 2023-24 and the previous few years, and I have Some Thoughts.

    In this exercise, I examined the financial statements from 2017-18 onwards for the 66 Canadian universities which are not federated with a larger institution and had income over $20 million. L’Université du Québec was excluded from the analysis below because it has yet to release financial statements for 2023-24.

    Figure 1 shows the average net surplus (that is, total income minus total expenditures as a percentage of total income) across all institutions for the fiscal years 2017-18 to 2023-24. As is evident from the graph, fiscal years 2018 through 2021 were all pretty good, apart from 2020 (the stock market did its COVID tank right at the end of the fiscal year and radically reduced investment returns that year), and overall surpluses were in the 6% range, which is not bad. But post-COVID, things got a bit rough, and the returns dropped to about 4%. Note, though, that there is a significant gap between the “big beasts” of the Canadian university scene and everyone else. In the good years, U15 institutions, which in financial terms represent about 60% of the system, saw surpluses about two percentage points higher than non-U15 institutions. Since 2022, the gap has been about three percentage points.

    Figure 1: Average Surpluses as a Percentage of Total Income, Canadian Universities, Fiscal Years 2018 to 2024

    Why have surpluses shrunk in the past few years? No surprise here: it is simply that costs have increased by about 7% in real terms for the past five years (that is about 1.4% above inflation each year), while revenues have only grown 3.7% (0.75% above inflation each year). Income growth has been pretty similar across U15 and non-U15 institutions, but expenditure growth has been significantly larger at non-U15 institutions.

    Figure 2: 5-year real change in Income and Expenditure, Canadian Universities, 2018-19 to 2023-24

    It is worth pointing out here, though, that all of this data is from before any of the effects of the international student visa cap of 2024 come into play. In eight out of ten provinces, it has been income from students that has driven universities’ revenue growth over the past five years. Only in Quebec and British Columbia has government spending been the main driver (and yes, I know, the idea that revenue from students is declining in British Columbia was a bit shocking to me too, but I triple-checked and its true—this is the one part of the country where international student revenue was falling even before Marc Miller started swinging his axe around).

    Figure 3: 5-year real change in Income by Source and Region, Canadian Universities, 2018-19 to 2023-24

    If you assume that international student numbers overall drop by 40% over three years (which is roughly what the government says it wants to achieve), then what we are likely is a decrease of about 11% in total university revenues between now and 2027 (assuming no other changes in enrolment or tuition fees, and an annual increase in government expenditures of inflation plus 1% which is what we saw in last year’s budget cycle but I wouldn’t necessarily bet on it for the future). Meanwhile, if we keep expenditures increasing at inflation plus 1.5%, we will see an increase in expenditures of about 6% by 2028. The result is what I would call a trulyyawning financial gap over the next four years. And it is precisely this that keeps senior admins up at night.

    Figure 4: Projected changes in Income and Expenditure, Canadian Universities, 2017-18 to 2027-28, Indexed to 2017-18

    Now to be clear, I don’t expect the sector to be posting multi-billion dollar gaps implied by Figure 4 (for clarity: while Figure 4 displays changes in projected income and expenditure in index terms, if the gap that opens up between 2024 and 2028 is as depicted here, the change in net position for universities will be equal to about $7 billion in 2028, which given current surpluses of $2 billion/year implies aggregate deficits of about $5 billion/year or about 11% of total income). The income drop will probably not be quite this bad, both because I expect institutions to raise fees on international students, and because I suspect international student numbers will not fall quite this far because provinces will re-distribute spots going unused by colleges (due to the reduction in enrolments that will ensure from last fall’s changes to the post-graduate work visa program). Similarly, the increase in expenditures won’t be this high either because institutions are going to do all they can to “bend the curve” in anticipation of a fall in revenues. But bottom line: there’s a looming $5 billion income gap that has to be closed just to stay in balance, and larger if we want the system to have at least some surpluses for rainy (rainier?) days in future.

    Anyways, back to the present. We can, of course, drill down to the institutional level, too. At this point in the exercise, I have chosen to exclude two more institutions from my calculations. The first is Concordia because it has a unique (and IMHO really irritating) practice of splitting its financial reporting between the institution and its “Foundation” (don’t ask), with the result that the institution’s financial statements alone tend to show the institution as worse off than it really is. The second is Royal Roads, which uniquely took a stonking great write-down on capital investments in 2024 and so frankly looks a lot worse than I think it should.

    So with our sample now down to just 63 institutions, Table 1 shows that in fact most universities have been doing OK over the past few years. Of the institutions included in this part of the analysis, 39 have been deficit-free since 2021-22, and 28 have not shown a deficit in any of the last five years. However, there are three institutions where it might be time to start worrying: Carleton, which has posted three consecutive deficits, and St. Thomas and Vancouver Island University, which have posted deficits in each of the past five years. Carleton is a little bit less worrisome than the other two because it socked away some huge surpluses in the years prior to 2022 and so has a little bit more runway. I’ll come back to the other two in a moment.

    Years in deficit Since 2019-20 Since 2021-22
    5 2 –
    4 0 n/a
    3 6 3
    2 13 7
    1 16 16
    0 28 39

    Figure 5, below, shows combined net surplus over the past five fiscal years (2019-20 to 2023-24) as a percentage of total revenues. There are eight institutions which have net losses over the past five years, and another eight with surpluses between 0 and 2% of total revenues, which I would characterize as “precarious.” There are another 29 institutions with combined five-year surpluses, which are between 2 and 5% of total revenues, which are not great but not in the immediate danger zone either. Finally, there are 18 institutions with surpluses of 5% or more, which I would characterize as being “safe,” including two (Algoma and Cape Breton) which have five-year surplus rates of over 20% (this is what happens when your student body is 75%+ international)

    Figure 5: Distribution of 5-year aggregate net surpluses, Canadian Institutions, 2019-20 to 2020-24

    But note the right-hand side of that graph. There are two institutions that have five-year deficits equal to more than 4% of their total revenues. And those two are the same two that have posted deficits for each of the past five years: St. Thomas University in New Brunswick and Vancouver Island University in British Columbia. I’ll talk about them in a bit more depth tomorrow.

    Source link

  • Private international foundation courses, and what they say about university leadership

    Private international foundation courses, and what they say about university leadership

    by Morten Hansen

    My research on the history of private international pathway providers and their public alternatives shows how some universities have stopped believing in themselves. Reversing this trend requires investment in their capabilities and leadership.

    The idea that universities have stopped believing in themselves as institutions that can take on the challenges of the day and find solutions that are better than those developed by private rivals echoes a point recently revived by Mariana Mazzucato. Mazzucato explains how private firms often are portrayed like lions. Bold animals that make things happen. The public sector and third-sector organisations, on the contrary, are too often seen as gerbils. Timid animals that are no good at developing new and innovative solutions.

    Skilled salesmen convinced some universities that private companies are better than universities at teaching and recruiting for university preparatory programmes. The inbuilt premise of this pitch is that universities are gerbils and private providers are lions. One university staff member explained what it felt like meeting such salesmen:

    “The thing that sticks most in my mind is the dress. And how these people sat differently, looked differently, spoke differently, and we felt parochial. We felt like a bunch of country bumpkins against some big suits.” (University staff)

    The lion-gerbil pitch worked in institutions across England because universities were stifled by three interlocking practices of inaction: outsourcing capability development; taking ambiguous stands on international tuition fees; and refusing to cooperate with other universities.

    Outsourcing capability

    Universities are increasingly outsourcing core aspects of their operations, such as recruiting international students. While university leadership is often characterised as conservative, my research suggest that this trope misses something critical about contemporary university leadership in English higher education. The problem with the term ‘conservative’ is that it implies that leadership is risk-averse, and comfortable projecting past power structures, practices and norms into the future. This does not correspond to historical developments and practices in the sector for international pathways.

    The University of Exeter, for example, submitted incorporation documents for their limited liability partnership with INTO University Partnerships only six years after the Limited Liability Partnerships Act 2000 was passed, which marked the first time in England’s history that this legal setup was possible. They took a big leap of faith in the private sector’s ability to recruit students for them, and after doing so invested time and resources helping INTO to further develop its capability. They even invited them onto their campuses. It is hard to overstate how much these actions diverged from historical practice and thus ‘conservative’ leadership.

    What was once a highly unusual thing to do, has over the last two decades thoroughly normalised—to the extent that partnering with pathways now seems unavoidable. One respondent from the private sector explained this change in the following way:

    “In 2006, ‘07, ‘08, ‘09, ‘10, the pathway providers were, if you like, the unwelcome tenants in the stately home of the university. We had to be suffered because we did something for them. Now, the relationship has totally moved. It’s almost as if they roll out the red carpet for the pathway providers” (C-suite)

    The far more conservative strategy would have been to lean into the university’s core capabilities – teaching and admissions – and scale this up over time. Yet that is precisely what my respondents said ‘conservative’ university leaders were unwilling to do: they did not believe the university could manage overseas recruitment by themselves. As argued by former Warwick VC Nigel Thrift, this timidity is not unique to the recruitment of international students, but also extends to their engagement with government agencies. University management by and large “has done as it has been told. It hasn’t exactly rolled over and played dead, but sometimes it can feel as though it is dangerously close to Stockholm Syndrome” (Thrift, 2025, p3).

    Ambiguous stands on international fees have deepened the current crises

    There is no law in England that compels universities to charge high international students fees. By setting them as high as possible and rapidly increasing the intake of international students, universities de facto offset and thus obfuscated the havoc that changing funding regimes wreaked on university finances. This has contributed to what Kings’ Vice Chancellor Shitij Kapur calls the ‘triangle of sadness’ between domestic students, universities, and the government.

    Had universities chosen to stand in solidarity with their international students by aligning their fees more closely to the fees of home students, then the subsequent crises in funding would have forced universities to either spend less money, or make it clearer to the wider public that more funding was needed, before building up the dependencies and subsequent vulnerabilities to intake fluctuations that are currently on full display. These vulnerabilities were exacerbated by overoptimistic growth plans, and university leadership not always fully understanding the added costs that came with such growth. In an example of this delayed realisation, one Pro-Vice-Chancellor explained to me what it felt like to partner with a private foundation pathway:

    “At the time you are signing up for these things, there is euphoria around because they are going to deliver against this business plan, which is showing hundreds of students coming in. International student is very buoyant, you sign up for a 35-year deal. So, everything is rosy. If you then just take a step back and think ‘so what am I exposing the university to?’  …  because in year seven, eight, ten, fifteen whatever, it can all go pear-shaped, and you are left then with the legacy building.” (Pro-Vice-Chancellor)

    By seeing fee setting as a practice, that is, something universities do to their own students rather than something that is inflicted by external (market or government) powers, we make visible its ideological nature and implications. The longer history of international fees in Brittan was thus an important site of ideological co-option; it was a critical juncture at which universities could have related in a more solidaric manner towards their students.

    Unwillingness to cooperate on increased student acquisition costs

    You might, at this stage, be wondering: what was the alternative? The answer is in recognising the structure of the market for what it is: efficiently recruiting and training a large number of international students requires some degree of cooperation between universities. My research, however, suggests that universities have often been unwilling to cooperate because they see each other chiefly as competitors. This competition is highly unequal given the advantage conferred to prestigious universities located in internationally well-known cities.

    The irony is that many universities nevertheless end up – perhaps unwittingly – cooperating by partnering with one of the few private companies that offer international foundation programmes. These private providers can only reach economies of scale because they partner with multiple universities at the same time. One executive explains how carrying a portfolio of universities for agents to offer their clients is precisely what gives them a competitive advantage:

    “The importance of the pathways to the agents is that they carry a portfolio of universities, and the ambition is that you have some which are very well-ranked and academically quite difficult to get into. And, you try and have a bottom-feeder or two, which is relatively easy to get into academically. The agent is then able to talk to its clients and say, look, I can get offers into these universities. Some of them are at the very top. If you are not good enough there, then you might get one in the middle and I’ve always got my insurance offer for you. […] what the pathways do is that they provide a portfolio that makes that easier.” (Private Executive)

    A public consortium with pooled resources and that isn’t shy about strategically coordinating student flows would have functioned just as well, and the Northern Consortium is living proof of this. The consortium in fact inspired Study Group to get into the pathway business themselves. The limited growth of the Consortium, relative to its private rivals, is equally proof of missed chances and wasted opportunities.

    Could the gerbil eat the lion?

    Private providers can use and have used these practices of inaction to pit universities against each other, over time resulting in lower entry requirements and higher recruitment costs. In this climate, public alternatives such as in-house programmes struggle to survive. Once invited in, pathway companies are also well positioned to expand their business with their partner universities in other ways, deepening their dependence. As one senior executive told me:

    “Our aspiration is to say that the heart of what we are is a good partner to universities. They trust us. […] for some of our core partners, we bring in a lot of revenue. And, that then puts us in a really good position to think about the other services that we can add of value.” (Private Executive)

    The economic downside of relying on these ‘good’ partners is the expensive and volatile market dynamics that follow. As long as universities are trapped by the notion that they are chiefly competitors best served by outsourcing capabilities to sales-oriented firms and leaving international students to pick up the bill, there is limited hope for any genuine inter-university collaboration and innovation. This limits the public potential for scaling an economically viable and resilient market in the long-run.  As a sector, HE has the know-how, experience, capital, and repute to do this. It’s just about getting on with it!

    Morten Hansen is a Lecturer in Digital Economy and Innovation Education at the Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London.

    Author: SRHE News Blog

    An international learned society, concerned with supporting research and researchers into Higher Education

    Source link

  • From going it alone to sharing university research and innovation services

    From going it alone to sharing university research and innovation services

    Unless you’ve been living under a rock, readers are likely to be very aware of the current financial challenges facing universities across the UK.

    The situation is no different in Scotland where several Scottish universities have reported an adjusted operating deficit position for academic year 2023–24 – although it’s important to note that this position can also reflect the stage of the institution’s investment cycle or actions being taken to restructure as well as reflecting the current year financial performance of an institution.

    These are difficult times for the sector. But a silver lining, if there were one to be found, could be that challenging times present an opportunity to do things differently. Approaches that would have previously been deemed too complicated to undertake can find themselves on the table because they have the potential to drive essential efficiencies and promote sustainability.

    Looming large

    With 18 universities receiving Scottish Funding Council (SFC) core funding for research – “Scottish QR”, the Research Excellence Grant (REG) – the Scottish system is of the size and scale where SFC can regularly have discussions with every vice principal for research. These discussions help us better understand the state of play and the pressures and challenges being faced.

    When we most recently spoke with vice principals, as you’d expect, financial sustainability loomed large. Challenges are having a real impact on how many institutions are considering their R&I activity.

    One of the things we heard is that an increasing number of institutions are exploring sharing back-office services between institutions to create efficiencies.

    This makes sense. Scotland is a small country with a largesse of universities, all of which undertake world-leading research as determined by the REF. We’re also a country of concentrated geography with many of our institutions focused in the same places.

    While these are moves in the right direction for sustainability, there are benefits from things happening sooner rather than later, given that there’s no quick fix for university finances. Here SFC has a role to play, by helping catalyse activity.

    This is the thinking behind the funding opportunity we launched this week – a new R&I Shared Services Collaboration Fund.

    Getting together

    The fund will allow Scottish universities to apply for funding to develop sustainable models and steps to implement sharing services, including but not limited to sharing tech transfer offices (TTOs) and research offices. It will allow:

    • The consolidation of existing distinct functions by replacing them with a single shared function.
    • Institutions with smaller research portfolios to work with larger institutions to gain access to expertise and capability that they don’t currently have.
    • The creation of shared capacity between groups of institutions where limited functions currently exist but new shared capability would drive efficiencies.

    It will kick-start longer-term collaboration by supporting the initial costs of change, enabling institutions to navigate the difficult proof of concept stage and de-risk the exploration of new approaches in a financially constrained environment.

    Our intention is to precipitate and fund a different way of working, investing in change which will enable the change to carry on.

    A total of £3m will be available over academic years 2025–26 and 2026–27 with grants of between £250,000 and £750,000 on offer through open competition. Grants will help to promote system sustainability by supporting increased inter-institutional operational collaboration.

    As well as promoting financial viability, where grants are focused on the sharing of technology transfer office (TTO) services, the fund will increase Scotland’s research commercialisation pipeline by expanding access to key facilities across institutions.

    This provides an opportunity to further Scottish government innovation ambitions as outlined in the National Innovation Strategy. University research commercialisation is central to the strategy and ensuring that world-leading research from across all of Scotland’s universities can be successfully commercialised requires access to critical expertise. The UK government’s spin-out review, published in November 2023, also highlights the value of shared technology transfer expertise across universities.

    And it’s not necessarily just about sharing research offices and TTOs – we’re interested in other proposals for sharing R&I services which meet our criteria.

    Small but mighty

    We’re under no illusions that the R&I Shared Services Collaboration Fund will solve or even make a significant dent in the financial challenges currently being faced by universities. No, doing that will require multi-factored activity across many stakeholders.

    But we hope that this funding will go some way to promoting sustainability and making Scotland’s small but mighty research system function in a way that reflects the opportunities of scale and collaboration we have on our doorstep.

    Source link

  • St. Catherine University Partners with Collegis Education to Advance Technology Strategy and Student Experience

    St. Catherine University Partners with Collegis Education to Advance Technology Strategy and Student Experience

    The strategic partnership will strengthen the University’s student-centered mission through agile technology, operational innovation, and a shared commitment to community.

    St. Paul, Minn. – (May 5, 2025) — St. Catherine University (St. Kate’s) and Collegis Education announced today that they have entered into a strategic partnership to enhance the University’s delivery of IT services.

    The decision to seek external IT support was driven by the University’s growing need to accelerate progress on strategic technology initiatives that had slowed within the existing tech infrastructure. The University recognized the need for a partner with the expertise, agility, and shared mission to help build a more responsive, future-ready infrastructure.

    “We realized that the pace of change in technology—and the expectations of our students—were outpacing what our internal systems and structures could support,” said Latisha Dawson, Vice President of Human Resources and Project Lead. “Our institution is centered around student connection and academic excellence. But to uphold that mission, we needed a partner with the technical expertise and scalability to move faster, innovate more nimbly, and help us deliver a modern student experience. Collegis allows us to do just that, so we can spend less time managing systems and more time serving our students.”

    In this partnership, Collegis will provide day-to-day IT operational support, a dedicated Chief Information Officer (CIO), and technological infrastructure that supports the university’s forward progress on strategic projects, while upholding strong data governance and enabling real-time responsiveness.

    As part of the deal, St. Kate will gain access to Collegis Education’s Connected Core®, a secure, composable data platform powered by Google Cloud. As a tech-agnostic solution, Connected Core unifies siloed systems and data sets, enables real-time and actionable institutional intelligence, produces AI-powered data strategies, and delivers proven solutions that enhance recruitment, retention, operations, and student experiences — driving measurable impact across the entire student lifecycle.

    St. Kate’s selected Collegis following a thorough evaluation of potential partners. “A lot of vendors can fill a gap, but that’s not what we were looking for,” said Dawson. “We were looking for someone to meet us where we are, grow with us, and truly enable us to excel. The real differentiator with Collegis was the spirit of partnership, and beyond that, community. From the beginning, they didn’t feel like an outsider. The team has become part of our community, and  a part of helping us advance our mission.”

    “Collegis is honored to join the St. Kate’s community in a shared commitment to the future of higher education,” said Kim Fahey, President and CEO of Collegis Education. “We see technology not as an end but as an enabler, an extension of the institution’s mission to educate women to lead and influence. This partnership is about building agile systems that empower faculty, enrich the student experience, and keep the University ahead of what’s next.”

    The partnership also reflects St. Kate’s strategic priority to build a more nimble technology foundation that shortens the timeline between priority-setting and implementation. The transition enables the university to move away from legacy systems and toward a model that supports real-time innovation, strategic flexibility, and long-term sustainability.

    “Our partnership with Collegis is rooted in our values,” said Marcheta Evans, PhD, President of St. Catherine University. “It allows us to remain focused on our mission while bringing in trusted expertise to support the evolving needs of our students, faculty, and staff.”

    Dawson concludes, “We’ve always been guided by the principle of meeting the needs of the time. Embracing this next level of technology ensures we can continue nurturing the powerful, personal connection between our faculty and students, which is what makes us uniquely St. Kate’s.”

    About Collegis Education

    As a mission-oriented, tech-enabled services provider, Collegis Education partners with higher education institutions to help align operations to drive transformative impact across the entire student lifecycle. With over 25 years as an industry pioneer, Collegis has proven how to leverage data, technology, and talent to optimize institutions’ business processes that enhance the student experience. With the strategic expertise that rivals the leading consultancies, a full suite of proven service lines, including marketing, enrollment, retention, IT, and its world-class Connected Core® data platform, Collegis helps its partners enable impact and drive revenue, growth, and innovation. Learn more at CollegisEducation.com or via LinkedIn.

    About St. Catherine University

    Sustained by a legacy of visionary women, St. Catherine University educates women to lead and influence. We are a diverse community of learners dedicated to academic rigor, core Catholic values, and a heartfelt commitment to social justice. St. Kate’s offers degrees at all levels in the humanities, arts, sciences, healthcare, and business fields that engage women in uncovering positive ways of transforming the world. St. Kate’s students learn and discern wisely, and live and lead justly — all to power lives of meaning. Discover more at stkate.edu. 

    Media Contacts:

    Collegis Education

    Alyssa Miller

    alyssa@ammediaworks.com

    973-615-1292

    St. Catherine University

    Sarah Voigt

    smvoigt133@stkate.edu

    651-690-8756

    Source link

  • University of Michigan President Dr. Santa Ono to Exit After Brief Tenure

    University of Michigan President Dr. Santa Ono to Exit After Brief Tenure

    Dr. Santa J. OnoUniversity of Michigan President Dr. Santa J. Ono has announced his departure after a remarkably brief three-year tenure, accepting the sole finalist position for the presidency at the University of Florida.

    In a statement released Sunday, Ono confirmed he plans to transition to his new role this summer, pending approval from Florida’s Board of Governors.

    “This decision was not made lightly, given the deep bond Wendy and I have formed with this extraordinary community,” Ono said in his announcement to the Michigan community.

    Ono’s short-lived presidency began in October 2022 when he was appointed to replace Dr. Mark Schlissel, who was terminated after an investigation revealed an inappropriate relationship with a subordinate. The leadership transition occurred during a turbulent period for the university, which was simultaneously managing litigation related to the Dr. Robert Anderson sexual abuse scandal and implementing reforms to its sexual misconduct policies.

    Before joining Michigan, Ono served as president at the University of British Columbia and the University of Cincinnati, establishing himself as an experienced higher education administrator before taking the helm at Michigan. In 2015, Diverse profiled Ono.

    His brief tenure at Michigan saw several notable developments, including the unveiling of Campus Plan 2050, a comprehensive blueprint for the Ann Arbor campus’s future development; progress on the University of Michigan Center for Innovation in Detroit; and the expansion of the Go Blue Guarantee, which now offers free tuition to families earning $125,000 or less.

    However, Ono’s administration has faced significant criticism for reducing investments in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives, including the controversial closure of the Office of DEI. Pro-Palestinian student activists have also criticized the administration’s handling of campus protests, claiming the university has restricted free expression and employed excessive measures to limit demonstrations.

    In his farewell message, Ono highlighted the establishment of the Institute for Civil Discourse as one of his accomplishments, describing it as an initiative aimed at strengthening “debate and dialogue across diverse ideologies and political perspectives.”

    “These accomplishments are a testament to the collaborative spirit, creativity, and dedication of our entire university community,” Ono said. “They reflect a deep commitment to ensuring that Michigan’s best days are still ahead.”

    The University of Michigan Board of Regents has not yet announced plans for identifying Ono’s successor or appointing an interim president.

    The University of Florida cited Ono’s “proven record of academic excellence, innovation and collaborative leadership at world-class institutions” in their announcement. If approved, Ono will replace former UF President Dr. Ben Sasse, who stepped down in July 2024.

    Source link

  • Harvard faculty group pledges 10% of salary to help university fight Trump

    Harvard faculty group pledges 10% of salary to help university fight Trump

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

     Dive Brief:

    • Dozens of faculty members at Harvard University have signed on to contribute 10% of their salaries, for up to a year, to the institution’s legal fight against the Trump administration. 
    • As of Friday afternoon, 88 senior faculty had signed the agreement, according to organizers. Of those, 43 have done so publicly.
    • The faculty pledge came just before President Donald Trump said his administration will pull Harvard’s tax-exempt status, adding “It’s what they deserve!” in a Friday social media post.

    Dive Insight:

    This week’s developments are only the latest in the ongoing battle between Harvard and Trump.

    In the president’s numerous attacks on higher education, Harvard in particular has borne intense scrutiny from the Trump administration. That aggression escalated significantly in mid-April when the Ivy League institution rebuked demands from federal agencies to interfere in academic matters, becoming the first well-known college to respond so forcefully.

    Since then, the administration has slashed Harvard’s federal funding by almost $2.3 billion, threatened billions of dollars more, opened Title VI investigations into it and its law review, and threatened its ability to enroll international students.

    Harvard is now suing the Trump administration over what it calls the government’s efforts to withhold federal funding “as leverage to gain control of academic decisionmaking.”

    Though Harvard is one of the best-resourced institutions in the country, the legal battle is likely to be arduous and expensive. This week’s faculty salary pledge described the university as facing “severe financial damage for its defense of academic freedom.” 

    That damage could come in the form of an unprecedented tax bill.

    In previous social media posts, Trump said Harvard “is a JOKE, teaches Hate and Stupidity, and should no longer receive Federal Funds” and should “be Taxed as a Political Entity.”

    Trump, as president, does not have unilateral legal authority to pull Harvard’s tax exemption, a status bestowed by the Internal Revenue Service. And neither the president nor employees of the executive office can legally direct the IRS to audit or investigate an institution. Federal law requires IRS employees who receive such directions to report them to the agency’s oversight office.

    Despite this, CNN reported in April that the IRS was making arrangements to revoke Harvard’s status, just after Trump posted on the matter.

    Such a change would significantly escalate Trump’s financial battle against Harvard that prompted the faculty pledge. The 11 faculty members leading the salary pledge said they intend for the signatories to hold a vote.

    “If the majority agrees that the university is making a good faith effort to use its own resources in support of staff, student, and academic programs, faculty will proceed with their donation,” their letter said.

    The pledge also acknowledged that not all faculty at Harvard are in a position to pledge 10% — or any — of their income and said the salary contribution plan is “only one of the various ways in which we can express solidarity around the university.”

    “We also know that many faculty are making important contributions to the Harvard community during this difficult time in other ways, by helping students and staff directly,” it said. 

    Source link

  • Rayden Murata – Tennis, Pacific University

    Rayden Murata – Tennis, Pacific University

    null

    Source link

  • The paradox of parents’ involvement in their children’s time at university

    The paradox of parents’ involvement in their children’s time at university

    Over the past few decades, there has been – as many an academic will attest – a significant shift in the extent to which parents are involved in their children’s higher education.

    Parents now often attend university open days with their children, with some institutions laying on separate talks and events for them. Moreover, despite the introduction of tuition fees and maintenance loans, many parents end up making some financial contribution to their child’s higher education.

    To date, however, we know relatively little about parents’ perspectives on their involvement, nor about the extent to which they support their children in non-financial ways once they have embarked on their higher education journey. Research that I have recently completed (with Julia Cook and Dan Woodman) on parents of Australian higher education students may be transferable to the UK, given the similarities between the two higher education systems and social structures more generally.

    Drawing on data from the longitudinal Life Patterns project, which has been following the lives of young Australians since the 1990s, we asked parents with children in higher education – or shortly to enrol – a series of questions about the support, if any, they were offering their children, as well as whether they felt parents should be supporting their children in any particular ways. Their responses were fascinating.

    Independence and intervention

    Nearly all of those we spoke to believed that higher education was a space in which young people learned how to be independent – and it was this that helped to distinguish it from school. University was typically positioned as a space where their children would “fend for themselves”, engage in “adult learning”, and be accountable for their own actions.

    However, while there was a strong rhetorical commitment to higher education as a time of achieving independence, when describing the detail of their parenting practices our participants outlined a wide range of ways in which they had been closely involved in the lives of their student children (or thought a parent should be), providing high levels of practical and emotional support.

    All of those we interviewed were either already providing financial support to their offspring at university, or they had clear plans to do so when their children enrolled. In addition, they either had already spent, or thought it was desirable to spend, considerable time with their children supporting them through any problems they encountered during their studies. This differed between participants but often included “coaching” approaches, to help the child identify the root cause of problems; strong encouragement to take advantage of the various services available on campus – sometimes with detailed advice about how best to access these; and, in a significant number of cases, direct involvement in academic matters, including paying for private tutors.

    The following excerpts from our interviews are illustrative:

    Yeah, we would help [daughter] through that and … make a timetable for her for the week on how she could help with the study. …. So she’s not thinking it’s all got to be done in a short amount of time.

    The other thing we could do is investigate some tutoring if that’s required.

    None of our interviewees remarked on the apparent paradox between the rhetorical foregrounding of “independence”, on the one hand, and the numerous examples of parental intervention, on the other. This is perhaps unsurprising. It does, however, raise the interesting question of why these parents continued to see university as a space of independence given the various forms of support they were giving their child (or thought should be given).

    Defining distances

    In answering this question, we can first point to the dominance of discourses about independence. Despite the well-documented changes to young people’s lives over recent decades and the associated later age at which the traditional markers of adulthood are on average now reached, independence as an achievement of early adulthood retains considerable discursive power. Admitting that one’s child is “semi-dependent”, or similar, while at university may thus be viewed as admitting or that an adult child is struggling and even that one has “failed” as a parent.

    Relatedly, it appears that there continues to be some social opprobrium associated with acknowledging that one intervenes in the life of one’s son or daughter once they reach the age for higher education. This is alluded to in the following comment from one of our interviewees:

    Kids get older, they’re more mature than you think. You don’t want to be seen as mothering your children, I don’t want to be that umbrella parent that’s hanging over them all the time saying ‘do go do this’ or ‘you should do that’.

    Both structural factors (such as having to pay tuition fees, and the high cost of university housing) and cultural influences (such as the expectation that parents take responsibility for monitoring their child’s educational progress) likely encourage parents to continue to intervene quite significantly in the lives of their student-children. Yet it appears that these participants were nevertheless keen to discursively distance themselves from such behaviours.

    These findings provide new insights into how parenting practices are shifting over time. They may also have broader political and policy implications. Our sample was broadly middle class and we would speculate that the interventions outlined above may not be available to all students – particularly those from families with no prior experience of higher education. Universities thus need to be aware that some students may be being supported in their academic endeavours by parents, and this may serve to exacerbate social inequalities. Can more support be offered within universities to those without such familial resources?

    With respect to more general policy debates, for those who believe that the student loan should be increased (or grants restored) to cover costs currently often picked up by parents, arguments may be harder to make if the actual degree of parental contribution is masked by the discourse of “independence”. There may therefore be some advantage to being more open about the degree of parental support, with respect to finances at least.

    Source link

  • Duke University offers buyouts and signals future layoffs as federal cuts hit

    Duke University offers buyouts and signals future layoffs as federal cuts hit

    Dive Brief:

    • Duke University is offering voluntary buyouts for employees and has frozen hiring as it braces for federal funding cuts, the institution said Wednesday. 
    • The North Carolina institution signaled that layoffs were likely in the coming months, but said it is “pursuing several employment actions now in hopes of reducing the scale of involuntary separations later this summer.”
    • The moves are in response to federal cuts and policy shifts, which could translate into funding losses for Duke between $500 million and $750 million, university officials said during an internal webinar Wednesday, according to media reports.

    Dive Insight:

    Historically, much of Duke’s research enterprise has been devoted to work on behalf of the government. Federal grant support made up nearly three-quarters of the $1.5 billion in sponsored research funds that Duke received in fiscal 2024, much of it going toward health science.

    The university, in its latest financial statement, described its medical school as “one of the largest biomedical research enterprises in the country.” And funding just from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — which houses the National Institutes of Health — accounted for 58% of all of Duke’s sponsored research funding. 

    The National Science Foundation and U.S. Department of Energy also accounted for tens of millions of dollars in the university’s funding. 

    Since President Donald Trump retook office, those agencies and others have been cutting and delaying grant awards at a frantic pace, including moves to cap reimbursement for indirect research costs at NIH and the Energy Department. Both funding caps have been blocked in courts — at least for now — but the Trump administration is continuing to fight the legal cases against the policies. 

    Uncertainty over the funding will likely loom for some time to come. 

    For Duke, the NIH indirect cost cap would mean $194 million in lost funding each year, President Vincent Price and other leaders said in February. 

    “Much is at stake,” the officials said then. “Our nation’s world-leading research enterprise has been enabled by — and will only be sustained by — partnership and co-investment from both the government and higher education.” 

    They also signaled at the time that “careful planning and difficult decisions” could lie ahead. 

    Today, Duke is trying to cut $350 million from its budget, according to reports of the university’s presentation, as it grapples with funding gaps under the Trump administration. 

    As it trims down, Duke has paused capital spending on buildings, renovations and other projects that are “not fully funded or deemed essential,” the university said Wednesday. 

    It’s also reviewing universitywide programs — such as technology adoption, off-campus real estate and on-campus space consolidation — for potential cost-savings.  

    Employee benefits could also be on the chopping block. 

    “A study is also under way to assess how certain changes to the university’s benefits may generate savings while protecting the program’s strong competitive position,” Duke said.

    However, Executive Vice President Daniel Ennis told employees Wednesday that the university still plans to give out merit raises and will not change its tuition grant program for children of employees. 

    Universities around the country have been scrambling in recent months to open breathing room in their budgets to cope with the uncertainty and disruption created by cuts and delays at federal agencies. Many have frozen hiring and budgets to maintain financial flexibility while others have laid off employees to cope with cuts.

    Source link

  • Lean, Global, and Tuition-Free: The University of the People Model

    Lean, Global, and Tuition-Free: The University of the People Model

    One of the most consistent problems in higher education, one that bedevils systems around the globe, is that of cost containment. Costs in higher education grow inexorably, both due to the Baumol effect, that is, services in labor intensive industries like education tend to have costs that grow faster than inflation. And the Bowen Effect, which states that because quality and education is unmeasurable and expenditures are often mistaken for quality, there’s a permanent ratchet effect on university costs limited only by the amount of resources a university can amass. Education’s expensive and getting ever more so.

    But what if I told you there was a university out there that had the cost problem licked? It’s a university based in the United States and accredited by the very respected Western Association of Schools and Colleges. It delivers education the world over with 150,000 students in more than 200 countries and territories. And it educates all these students tuition free, for a grand total of about $150 US per year per student. Sound miraculous? Well, it is in a way, and it’s not easily replicable, but it is real and it’s worth learning from. It’s called the University of the People, an online institution founded in 2009 and based in California. 

    Today, my guest is the University of the People’s Founder and President Shai Reshef. He’s received global recognition for his work at University of the People. He’s an Ashoka fellow. He’s one of Fast Company’s Most Creative in Business, named the Top Global Thinker by Foreign Policy Magazine, and most impressively, he was winner of the 2023 Yidan Prize for Educational Development, which is probably the highest form of global recognition in the field of education.

    In our chat today, Shai and I cover the basic economics of running a mega online university. We answer the questions: how do you serve students across 20 plus time zones? How does a university without government support stay tuition free? And most importantly, how — even if most of your staff are volunteer — are you able to manage things like academic governance and quality assurance on a shoestring?

    And as I said, not everything Shai is going to tell us today is going to be transferrable to other institutions, but his message should have at least some resonance and the University of the People’s experiences can lead to change elsewhere.

    But enough for me. Let’s listen to Shai.

    The World of Higher Education Podcast
    Episode 3.29 | Lean, Global, and Tuition-Free: The University of the People Model

    Transcript

    Alex Usher (AU): Shai, let’s start with the basics. For listeners who might not be familiar—what is the University of the People? Who does it serve? And how does that make it different from a traditional university?

    Shai Reshef (SR): The University of the People is the first nonprofit, tuition-free, accredited American online university. Our mission is to open the gates of higher education to anyone in the world who is qualified but has no other way to access it—either because it’s too expensive, like in the U.S., or because they live in countries where there aren’t enough universities. Africa would be a great example.

    We also serve people who are deprived of access for political or cultural reasons—refugees, women in Afghanistan, or anyone else who, for personal reasons, can’t attend a traditional university. We use the internet to bring higher education to them.

    AU: How big is the institution? How many students do you have? Where are they from? And what’s the breadth of programming that you offer?

    SR: We started in 2009. As of now, we have 153,000 students from 209 countries—so, pretty much from almost every country in the world.

    Our students are typically people who did go to high school but didn’t attend university afterward. Many of them started working and later realized they needed a degree to advance their careers. Our student body tends to be older; they’re not your typical 18-year-olds. They come to us because they want a better future.

    That’s why we only offer degrees that are likely to help them find jobs. At the undergraduate level, we offer degrees in business administration, computer science, and health science. At the graduate level, we offer programs in education, information technology, and business—specifically, the MBA.

    AU: That’s huge. This must cost an awful lot of money. You’re not a public university in the sense of being government funded, and you’re not charging tuition. So how does it work? What does it cost, and how do you make ends meet?

    SR: Well, first of all, we are nonprofit. So, we’re not making money—maybe a small surplus, but not profit. And we are tuition-free. That means students can study for free, but when they get to the exams, we ask them to pay $140 USD per exam.

    Now, for some students—especially those from developing countries—even that amount is too much. So we provide scholarships where we can. About half of our students pay the exam fees, and the other half receive scholarships.

    We’re able to stay sustainable and tuition-free because we run a very lean operation. We rely heavily on technology. We offer only a few degree programs, all of which are directly relevant to the job market. We also operate in many parts of the world where we can deliver quality education at lower costs.

    We don’t have buildings—since we’re fully online—and importantly, we lean heavily on volunteers. I’m a volunteer. The deans are volunteers. Our professors and faculty are volunteers too. In fact, we have over 40,000 volunteers supporting the university.

    AU: But surely $140 per exam on its own isn’t enough to run the institution, right? You must have other sources of income, I imagine?

    SR: Our budget—running a university with 153,000 students—is about $20 million USD. Two-thirds of that comes from student fees. The remaining one-third comes from donations. These include contributions from wealthy individuals and foundations such as the Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Ulet Foundation. We also receive some government support—for example, from the German government.

    So, about $7 million comes from donations, and $13–14 million comes from student fees. But again, we operate on just a fraction of the budget that any other university of our size would require.

    AU: I’m just looking at the numbers—$20 million to teach 150,000 students. That’s about $120 or $130 per student. That’s very, very low. And one of the ways you manage that, I understand, is through your use of volunteers. How do you get people to teach for free?

    SR: It’s a good question. In my previous life, before I started the University of the People, I launched and ran the first online university in Europe. So I had a good understanding of how an online university should operate.

    When I decided to start the University of the People and make it tuition-free, the main difference—among several—was to rely on volunteers rather than paid faculty and staff. At the time, I wasn’t sure how well that would work.

    I announced the university in January 2009 at a conference in Munich. The next day, The New York Times ran a full-page article about it. And the day after that, I already had hundreds of professors writing to me saying, “We love this idea. We want to help.”

    So people come to us. I’m not out there recruiting them—they come because I’m not the only one who believes higher education should be a basic right, and that money shouldn’t be a barrier. I came with the idea of tuition-free higher education, and a lot of people believe in that mission. They want to be part of it and help.

    AU: What kind of support services are you able to offer students? I mean, student services, academic support—how can you do that within a tuition-free model? Are there still some things you’re able to provide?

    SR: Oh, we’re able to do a lot. First of all, all of our courses are written in advance by subject matter experts. They go through a peer review process, just like any other academic program. Once finalized, they’re taught in our online classes.

    When students sign up, they’re placed in a class of 20 to 30 students—each time with peers from 20 to 30 different countries. Every course runs for eight weeks. On the first day of the week, students receive their lecture notes, reading assignments, homework, and discussion question.

    The core of our pedagogy is peer discussion—students engage in week-long discussions around the topic of the week. Every class has a professor who reads and moderates the discussion daily.

    Each student also has a program advisor who follows them from the moment they enroll until they graduate. So there is a lot of support. If a student stops showing up to class, they’ll typically get an email asking where they are.

    Even though our professors are volunteers, they commit 10 to 15 hours per week, per course, to support students with everything they need. So it’s a full-service university.

    The difference between us and a traditional university is that we don’t offer the “nice-to-haves.” We don’t have a football team, a gym, or psychological services—which are important, but we simply can’t afford them. But everything core to the academic experience is there—and delivered with high quality.

    AU: Shai, I want to ask—one of the things you must have to navigate when you’ve got students from all over the world and you’re operating in so many jurisdictions is accreditation. That seems like something that’s very bureaucratic and time-consuming. So how do you handle that? Do you do any jurisdiction shopping? Where are your degrees accredited, and is that part of the reason people pursue them?

    SR: Originally, in 2014, we were accredited by DEAC, which is a national accreditation agency in the U.S. And just a couple of weeks ago, we were accredited by WASC—the Western Association of Schools and Colleges—which is one of the six regional accrediting bodies in the U.S.

    That puts us in the same group as Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA. Some might argue they need to work a little harder to meet our standards—but in any case, we’re now in the same accreditation category.

    Now, even though our students come from around the world, many of them admire American education. That’s a big part of why they choose us. In a few countries, we’re not locally recognized because we’re fully online. But still, thousands of students study with us because they value the American degree, and because local employers recognize and appreciate the quality of our education.

    Was it easy to get accredited? No, it was hard. It took a lot of work. We had to prove that what we offer is equivalent, in terms of outcomes, to what traditional universities offer. That includes how we admit students, how we support them, and how we assess their learning outcomes.

    In the end, we did everything required to meet those expectations—and we succeeded. That’s why we were granted accreditation.

    AU: It just occurred to me, as I was thinking about this, that maybe this is your secret sauce. These are the kinds of things that cost millions of dollars at many universities. And if you’re able to do it without complex quality assurance structures, academic senates, registrar’s offices, and all those kinds of things—if you’re able to do it with the leanest version of those—isn’t that something other institutions could learn from?

    SR: Yes, they can learn. But do they want to learn? That’s a different question.

    One of the challenges we pose to other universities is this: when you’re charging $30,000 to $50,000 a year, and then here comes a university charging just $1,400 a year—if students pay in full and study full time—that’s a huge contrast. And when traditional institutions see that, they often just turn around and say, “No way,” because they don’t believe it’s real.

    The truth is, our advantage comes from the fact that we built a new institution from scratch. That allowed us to decide what to do—and what not to do.

    Let me give you an example. At a university our size, the admissions office alone might have thousands of people reading student résumés, essays, checking social media, verifying every detail—thoroughly evaluating each application.

    We do it differently. We say: if you have a high school diploma, come and take two courses. If you pass, you’ve shown us you meet our standards. You get credit for those courses and become a degree-seeking student. If you can’t pass, you can’t continue.

    Now, not only is that a better system in my view—because it tests students based on how they actually perform, not how well someone coached them on an application—but it also saves a ton of money. We don’t need a large admissions operation. Just come in and prove yourself.

    It’s a different way of operating—and a much more efficient one. And I think that’s our real secret. It’s not really a secret—but it works.

    AU: You’ve scaled up incredibly quickly—15 years to reach 150,000 students, and to be embedded in, I guess, just about every country in the world. What were the biggest hurdles in that scaling process? Were there moments where you stumbled and thought, “Wow, I’m not sure we can grow this quickly?” Or was it pretty smooth?

    SR: Well, if you ask me, I’d actually answer a different question: Why aren’t we even bigger than we are?

    Because the truth is, we’re online—there are no physical seat limits. Nobody has to stand at the back of the lecture hall. So, in theory, we could double our student body. Why haven’t we?

    The main challenge is that most people in the world haven’t heard of us. Even when I travel and someone asks what I do, and I say, “University of the People,” I’m surprised if they’ve heard of it. Most people haven’t—and especially not the ones who need us most, like refugees or people in remote or underserved regions.

    The second challenge is that even when people do find us, we don’t have enough resources to support everyone. For example, we have 4,300 Afghan women currently hiding and studying with us inside Afghanistan—but we received 20,000 applications from there. So yes, it’s incredible that we can serve over 4,000 women, but we simply can’t accommodate all who apply.

    To go back to your original question about the difficulties we’ve encountered—yes, there are some. For instance, there are countries that still don’t recognize online education. In those places, we’re just waiting for governments to become more open to 21st-century technologies and new models of learning.

    So that’s been one of our biggest challenges: growing awareness and overcoming regulatory barriers.

    AU: In lots of traditional universities, success is measured through things like research output, income, or rankings. How do you measure success at the University of the People?

    SR: Well, the first thing we look at is how many people we’ve given the opportunity to pursue higher education—people who had no other alternatives. That’s a key measure for us.

    I was once interviewed by a student journalist from an Ivy League school, and he said, “You’re setting up competition for my institution.” And I told him, “Anyone who wants to go to your institution should absolutely do so. But we’re here for those who don’t have that option.”

    So one measure of our success is how many doors we open. Another is how many of our students actually graduate—and what they go on to do. We have graduates working at Amazon, Google, Apple, IBM, the World Bank—that’s another sign of success.

    Ultimately, we measure ourselves by whether we’ve helped people build a better life. Are they better off while studying with us? That’s what matters to us.

    We don’t participate in rankings competitions. We don’t try to be the most expensive institution—though in some parts of the sector, it seems the more expensive you are, the better you’re perceived to be. That’s a strange way to measure quality, but it’s common in higher ed.

    We’re proud to be different. We’re changing the model of higher education to make it accessible, affordable, and high-quality.

    AU: A few days ago in The New York Times, there was an article by the Russian writer Masha Gessen. They were talking about the attacks on higher education in the United States and mentioned that the ideal model right now might be the University of the People in Poland—a communist-era, tuition-free university. As I was preparing for this interview, I thought, “Wait a minute, that sounds a lot like your University of the People.” I’m curious what you think about that argument. Given all the challenges in U.S. higher education—even before Trump—are approaches like yours part of the solution?

    SR: I actually read that very article. Believe it or not, we just sent them an email today saying the same thing—basically, “It sounds like you’re talking about the University of the People.” I assume they don’t know about us—otherwise, they probably would have mentioned us directly.

    I truly believe we are the future. Every person should have the right to higher education. Universities should open their gates far wider than they do now. The more people who are educated, the stronger the country: people have better futures, the economy improves, and society benefits from individuals who are well-rounded and capable of critical thinking. That’s what the world needs.

    The American system has created some of the best universities in the world—there’s no question about that. I’m not against those institutions. What I’m against is the lack of opportunity for everyone else. And I think what we’ve demonstrated is that higher education can be accessible and affordable for all.

    That’s part of why we’ve grown so quickly—we want to show that this model works, that it’s sustainable, and that others can follow it, in the U.S. and around the world. The challenges facing higher education aren’t unique to one country; they’re global. And anyone can look at what we’ve done and replicate it—or ask us to help them replicate it. We’d be happy to help.

    AU: So, you’ve been around for just over 15 years. If I ask you to look ahead—what does the University of the People look like in 2040? Will you be twice as big? Even bigger than that? Will you offer different kinds of degrees? How do you see the next decade and a half playing out?

    SR: You know, in 2010, following the earthquake in Haiti, we announced that we would take in 250 Haitian students and teach them for free. What I didn’t realize at the time was that, after the earthquake, many of them were living in tents, without electricity or internet.

    Still, two months later, the first group of 15 or 16 students began studying. I went to Haiti to welcome them, and I met many students while I was there. One of them asked me what the future of University of the People looked like. I gave them the same answer I’d give today:

    We’ll keep growing to serve more and more students—until one day we wake up and realize that all the students in the world who need access to higher education are being served. And then, maybe, we’ll go back to sleep and wake up with another dream.

    Until then, we have a long way to go. So yes, we’ll continue to grow, we’ll continue to serve more people, and hopefully, others will replicate what we’re doing. We don’t need to educate the entire world—just help show that it’s possible.

    AU: Shai, thank you so much for being with us today.

    SR: Thank you very much for this interview. It was fascinating—thank you.

    AU: And it just remains for me to thank our excellent producers—Tiffany MacLennan, Sam Pufek—and you, our viewers, listeners, and readers, for joining us. If you have any questions about this podcast or suggestions for future episodes, please don’t hesitate to get in touch at podcast@higheredstrategy.com. Quick request from us: head over to our YouTube page and subscribe to the Higher Education Strategy Associates channel so you never miss an episode of The World of Higher Education.

    Join us next week—my guest will be John Stackhouse. He’s the Senior Vice President at RBC and former Editor-in-Chief of The Globe and Mail. He’ll be joining me to talk about a new post-secondary education initiative that RBC is undertaking, in partnership with the Business + Higher Education Roundtable and us here at Higher Education Strategy Associates. I’ll be asking in particular about the future of Canadian higher education and how better links can be forged between universities and the private sector. See you then.

    *This podcast transcript was generated using an AI transcription service with limited editing. Please forgive any errors made through this service. Please note, the views and opinions expressed in each episode are those of the individual contributors, and do not necessarily reflect those of the podcast host and team, or our sponsors.

    This episode is sponsored by KnowMeQ. ArchieCPL is the first AI-enabled tool that massively streamlines credit for prior learning evaluation. Toronto based KnowMeQ makes ethical AI tools that boost and bottom line, achieving new efficiencies in higher ed and workforce upskilling. 

    Source link