Acadeum is now offering 500 high school courses for dual college enrollment. Reported by Higher Ed Dive, this pilot only includes four transfer colleges who will also be providing the courses, including Baker College, Franklin University, Western Texas College, and Strayer University. Eligibility requirements include junior year standing and a 3.0 GPA. The takeaway? What […]

Bowdoin College has increased their minimum wage to $17 per hour. Reported by Higher Ed Dive, this increase comes 10 months ahead of schedule in response to a state-wide worker shortage, hoping both to attract new local employees and retain their existing workforce that has stayed through the pandemic. The takeaway? Higher ed had some […]

The Second Chance Pell Grant program is expanding again. Reported by Higher Ed Dive, The U.S. Department of Education is tripling the number of participating colleges and universities, from 67 up to 200 based on the positive results of the first six years of this pilot. The takeaway? Now more institutions than ever will be […]

Is the 1-stop enrollment shop model evolving again? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, Harvard University’s Kennedy School has announced their new integrated enrollment staffing model, in which their enrollment counselors will also serve as financial aid counselors. The takeaway? Is this simply an evolution from a 1-stop shop model to a 1-point of contact model? […]

Arizona State University has developed a new dual enrollment high school pathway with Amazon Web Services. Reported by Higher Ed Dive, 10,000 high school students from low-income districts will take asynchronous cloud computing classes this fall, earning an AWS certification along with college credit from ASU. The takeaway? More than 200 colleges and universities now […]

How can we learn off other institutions’ learning curves regarding their STEM field diversification strategies? Reported by EdSurge, a 2019 study found that University of Maryland, Baltimore County was the most successful at retaining diverse STEM students. From their Meyerhoff Scholars program, to their alumni mentorship strategies, to their high school bridge programs, UMBC has […]

How can our institutions create better peer-to-peer support channels? Reported by EdSurge, we’re up against a sheer logistical limitation for our faculty alone to be able to fully support the academic and personal struggles of our students. That’s why many institutions are growing their peer-to-peer support networks. Not to outsource amateur-level counseling, but to create […]

Our faculty’s perception of online learning isn’t getting any better. Reported by EdSurge, while the emergency remote learning experience of Spring 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic provided a fairly negative online experience for both students and faculty, a recent study showed that faculty opinions of online learning haven’t actually improved since. And this […]

Two Boston colleges have instated weekly coronavirus testing mandates, even for their vaccinated students. Reported by Higher Ed Dive, both Northeastern and Boston University are requiring weekly testing for their on-campus students and employees. Above and beyond the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendations, this weekly testing mandate also includes their fully vaccinated students […]

The new no-test scores requirement led to the University of California System’s largest enrollment class diversity ever. Reported by Inside Higher Ed, a full 43% of University of California freshman came from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups this year, the most in system history, through a 13% total increase in student applications. The takeaway? While […]

The FAFSA completion rate declined 4.8% year-over-year. Reported by Inside Higher Ed, the high school graduating class of 2021 completed the Free Application for Federal Student Aid at a rate nearly 5% lower than the preceding class. For schools with majority black and latino student populations, this decline was greater than 8%. And with the […]

Hope College is hoping to go tuition-free. Reported by Inside Higher Ed, Hope College is attempting to raise $1 billion in order to move to a permanent tuition-free funding model for their students. This not only requires an immense front-end fundraising effort, but new students will also be required to sign a non-binding commitment to […]

Could the language in our student reference questionnaires be discriminatory? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, letters of recommendation for Dallas Theological Seminary’s graduate programs include questions about the student’s physical condition, intelligence, teachability, sexuality, and a qualitative analysis of their relationship. These questions have raised serious concerns about the legality of asking such questions as […]

A new law is making Illinois’ public colleges test-optional moving forward. Reported by Inside Higher Ed, Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker signed legislation requiring all Illinois public colleges and universities to offer test-optional admissions, enstating into law what has been a broader willing trend in higher ed over the last several years. The takeaway? Test-optional isn’t […]

How do we navigate the ethics of student experience experimentation? Reported by EdSurge, edtech companies have amazing experimentation opportunities. The ability to A/B test a product or curriculum change within the learning management system, and see the direct impact of that change. Without this experimentation, it’s so hard to improve learning outcomes. But do students […]

Is doubling the Pell Grant the best way to increase higher ed access? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, while the Pell Grant (which currently provides $6,495 of need-based aid a year) used to cover nearly 80% of the cost of college for lower-income students, rising college costs mean that it now covers less than a […]

The Department of Education has canceled $500 million in student loans from ITT Tech. Reported by Inside Higher Ed, with many veterans having complained about how ITT Tech stole their GI Bill funds by misleading students about their job prospects and issuing credits students found incredibly difficult to transfer to other institutions upon the institution’s […]

Can we start to quantify the financial impact of COVID? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, a full 40% of students experienced financial disruption during COVID. With 29% of undergraduates reporting losing a job or a loss of income from reduced work hours, and 9% reporting having difficulty paying for food. The takeaway? Many of our […]

Should our institutions focus on teaching durable skills vs. technical skills with fast-approaching expiration dates? Reported by eCampusNews, while more and more institutions are partnering with or integrating bootcamps or similar technical programs within their existing degree programs, it’s the collaboration, communication, and broader people skills HR managers claim our new grads are missing out […]

Will the role of the small struggling college president shift from chief fundraiser to head of mergers & acquisitions? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, with reports that Mills College is exploring acquisition plans by Northeastern University, this begs the question of how the role of the small college president may evolve over the next 20 […]

Will online campus counseling remain post-pandemic? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, prior to the pandemic, only 8% of institutions offered telehealth mental health and counseling services. But online services have ended up helping colleges reach entirely new populations of students, with video counseling sessions up 7000% from mid-March to June 2020. The takeaway? While state […]

Amherst College has admitted their first ever majority non-white class. Reported by Inside Higher Ed, one of the top ranked liberal arts colleges in the country, this small Massachusetts institution which didn’t even admit women  until 1975 is now one of the most diverse private colleges in the country. The secret? A commitment to diversity […]

Does the COVID-19 College Vaccine Challenge lack incentives? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, this White House initiative is an attempt to encourage college campuses – many of which were superspreader locations last year – to encourage their students, faculty and staff to get vaccinated against the coronavirus. For those campuses who are successful in doing […]

What should our “go remote” ripcord look like this fall? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, Northern Illinois University and their faculty have determined in advance that an 8% student positivity rate on campus will allow for any instructor to choose to move their class instruction online if they would like to. The takeaway? Making threshold […]

Can the University of Iowa eliminate masking speech on campus? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, initial Fall 2021 classroom speech guidance stated that instructors “may only make statements regarding mask usage or vaccinations in the context of course material discussions of health-related issues.” But following criticism, the institution is rethinking these speech limitations. The takeaway? […]

Is a student transfer pandemic heading our way? Reported by Encoura, for the ⅓ of first-year students who claim the pandemic affected their college choice, what’s going to happen to them once they have other options? Because among this ⅓, around 44% believe they will likely or definitely transfer in the future, more than double […]

Cornell University says ‘no’ to faculty remote work requests. Reported by Inside Higher Ed, Cornell will not consider faculty requests to teach remotely, even from those seeking accommodations for chronic illness or disability. The takeaway? Cornell is going all-in on in-person education for their on-ground classes. But does this blanket refusal for remote work open […]

A new Vatican ruling sees online learning as the secret to pontifical college accessibility for the needy. Reported by UPCEA, the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education is pushing pontifical institutions to expand their online opportunities to prisoners, migrants, homeless, and those in religious vocations with full-time work responsibilities. The takeaway? While in-person instruction and community-driven […]

The Supreme Court has rejected a challenge to Indiana University’s vaccine mandate. Reported by Higher Ed Dive, eight Indiana University students sued the institution, claiming that the vaccine mandate infringes their constitutional rights. Higher courts pointed to legal precedent, including a 1905 Supreme Court decision upholding the ability for public entities to enforce vaccination laws, […]

Do test-optional admission requirements hurt Asian students the most? A new report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce suggests that test-optional admissions requirements likely decrease Asian American student enrollment in elite colleges and universities by 2%. This mirrors the narrative defended by Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), which has sued several […]

Colorado will give out associate’s degrees to past college drop-outs for time served? Reported by UPCEA, more than 13,000 Coloradans have earned more than 70 college credits at state universities on their way to a bachelor’s degree, but stopped short over the past five years. Now, a new law will grant these students with an […]

Yale has won initial judgment in a case against a student who wanted a refund for having been switched to online learning last year. Reported by UPCEA, key to the decision was the plaintiff being unable to demonstrate how online classes were inferior to in-person instruction. The takeaway? This is perhaps a small sigh of […]

Target follows Walmart’s 100% free tuition news with their own. Reported by CNN, Target plans on investing 200 million over the next four years into this new education benefit, where part-time and full-time Target employees can enroll in in more than 250 degree program options across 40 different institutions, starting as early as day 1 […]

Walmart is now offering their 1.5 million employees free college tuition and books. Reported by The Washington Post, Walmart plans to spend $1 billion over the next five years on learning and development initiatives, in an attempt to better recruit and upskill their own internal workforce. While this Live Better U program is limited to […]

There are two different paths back to “normal” in higher ed. Reported by Higher Ed Dive, one is simply pretending we’re there already. No vaccine mandates. No mask mandates. Cross your fingers, and open up for fall. A few states and a few dozen universities appear to be taking this approach. But the Centers for […]

Did our faculty lose some academic governing power during this pandemic year? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, a new survey from the American Association of University Professors suggests that many faculty believe their institutions have utilized the “emergency” nature of the pandemic to flout shared governance and make rapid changes, including laying off faculty and […]

How will higher ed navigate the Delta variant? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, fall opening plans that were on track are now starting to be revisited with worsening news about how contagious the new Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus looks to be. More institutions like The University of Memphis are now saying that masks […]

77% of employers want to reinvent the MBA. Reported by Yahoo! Finance, a survey of 500 employers returned the startling news that the vast majority of employers believe our MBAs aren’t relevant enough for the future, with only 35% of these employers formally partnering with universities for their learning and development initiatives. On the positive […]

Illinois colleges saw a 29% percent drop in black student enrollment between 2013 and 2018. Reported by Inside Higher Ed, these crisis-level statistics have forced a formal exploration for solutions from a 45-person working group, which has come back with outlined strategies for improving student pipelines and college preparation, focusing on creating more inclusive and […]

You wake up one day, and your student balance is gone? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, Trinity Washington University has used their COVID-19 relief funds to pay off the balances of nearly 400 undergraduate students, at an average of $4,583 per student. The goal is to provide their students with a clean slate to enter […]

Do we understand the price elasticity of online learning? Reported by EdSurge, while one promise of online education has always been that of scale, many institutions find online learning infrastructure more expensive to build and maintain than their in-person learning environments, all while keeping capped class sizes to ensure more personalized student attention. As such, […]

What does it take to become an autism-supportive college? Reported by EdTech Magazine, Bellevue College uses a strengths-based approach to help students on the autism spectrum navigate online learning. IT teams work to keep in mind communication differences – that they might only be hearing or seeing 10% of what the student meant to say. […]

Build it, or they will leave. Reported by UPCEA, University of North Carolina System President Peter Hanz declared a new commitment to adult learners, as part of the state’s goal to have 2 million working-age North Carolinians with a post-secondary degree or credential by the year 2030. This announcement partially stems from the fact that […]

Are hybrid colleges the affordable solution for students who online-only doesn’t work for? Reported by EdSurge, one big downside of online-only education is the isolation involved. Despite the resources and effort colleges offer their online students, these resources often go underutilized, and the student feels truly on their own. For the highly self-motivated student, there […]

Would a moneyball approach to hiring increase the demand for undervalued transfer students? Reported by EdSurge, it’s the employees most used to working within change that most employers find the most valuable. Therefore, is a transfer student transcript a wonderful signal of flexibility, thoughtfulness, and adaptability? New research from The Ohio State University suggests that […]

Is “first course free” an effective motivator for our traditional students? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, two foundations are providing first course free for New Hampshire high school graduates at any of the state’s seven community colleges this fall. A wonderful gesture for students and to help our struggling community colleges, is this the right […]

Will this year be a comeback year for the ACT and SAT? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, while 60% of colleges and universities plan on maintaining test-optional admissions next year, some are moving right back to their pre-pandemic admission considerations. For instance, the University System of Georgia announced their plans to resume test score admission […]

What will the effects of our new “waitlist” nation be? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, test-optional admission decisions are up drastically due to the pandemic, with 20% of students nationally currently sitting on a wait list. This number is even greater for students of color, at 29%. The takeaway? While test-optional admissions have done a […]

Malcolm Gladwell’s critique of higher education continues. Reported by UNCF, the best-selling author’s podcast, Revisionist History, is specifically digging into the U.S. News & World Report rankings this season. Questioning whether or not the publication’s popular ranking system is helpful for anything beyond determining and sort-ranking which institutions selectively admit more students of higher academic […]

Is there a growing market for extended reality degree programs? Reported by EdSurge, Husson University is one of the first in the country to offer an extended reality degree program, designed as a cross-curricular program, incorporating the fields of augmented reality, visual design, and coding. The takeaway? When is the right time to go all-in […]

 Is automated proctoring smart cost-saving or a false-positive travesty? Reported by EdSurge, with academic integrity and the legitimacy of our credentials on the line, many institutions have turned to automated proctoring to ensure the honesty and truthfulness of their students’ grades. But with so many false-positive cases reported, technology issues recognizing darker skinned students, and […]

Will grade-optional become the next test-optional trend? Reported by EdSurge, while many universities moved to pass/fail grading as an attempted act of compassion during the pandemic, many students remained uncertain about the long-term ramifications of accepting that courtesy. Would a “satisfactory” or a “pass” look even worse than a B or a C on an […]

What does inclusive online teaching look like? Reported by EdSurge, the Columbia University Center for Teaching and Learning has circled back with three primary learnings after a pandemic learning year. One: ensuring students have the technological capabilities to be successful online students is critical. Do all of your students have a personal device able to […]

Why not open up Pell Grants for very short-term credential programs? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, while Pell Grants are still not available to low-income students for very short-term credentials such as eight-week vocational programs, the question is why not? One angle of skepticism for critics of these proposals is whether or not it’s honest […]

How will the NCAA’s new rules for athletes’ personal monetization affect college enrollment? Reported by CNBC, NCAA athletes will now be able to make money off personal endorsements while a college athlete. This is a complete 180-degree turn from the previous policy that prevented athletes from making a dime for their efforts beyond college scholarships, […]

Are SPACs coming for EdTech? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, these “special purchase acquisition companies” have become popular investment vehicles for private companies, allowing for faster fundraising than the route of an initial public offering. The takeaway? With $2.2 billion dollars in private investment dollars entering into the education market in 2020, will SPACs chase […]

Will technical colleges evolve into 2-year colleges faster than the other way around? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, a bill is up for consideration in Wisconsin allowing the state’s technical schools to offer additional 2-year degrees. But with enrollment halving over the past decade across the University of Wisconsin System’s 2-year schools, these institutions are […]

We’re entering year two of our internship interruption.  Reported by Higher Ed Dive, 38% of students saw their internship or post-graduate job cancel due to the pandemic last year, unsure if remote internships could work – if it could be a positive experience for both parties. And even today, employers seem to still be unsure […]

ZOOM is handing back free speech to colleges. Reported by Higher Ed Dive, ZOOM has announced a change in policy which gives institutions more control over the virtual events they host on their platform. This policy change was spurred after ZOOM canceled the virtual events at several colleges because of their conflicts with the respective […]

Michigan’s free college plan for frontline workers has seen massive interest. Reported by Higher Ed Dive, more than 120,000 applicants have come in for Michigan’s Future for Frontliners program, designed to provide free tuition after aid for working adults. All of this stems from Michigan’s Sixty by 30 initiative, designed to make 60% of the […]

UNCC is closing the degree completion gap between financial populations. Reported by Higher Ed Dive, for the vast majority of stop-outs and drop-outs, their decision is almost always a financial one. So when UNC Charlotte shrinks the gap in 6-year graduation rate between Pell Grant recipients and not from 14.1% to 3%, it’s time to […]

We’re getting one step closer to Arizona Starbucks University. Reported by Higher Ed Dive, the ASU-Starbucks Center for the Future of the People and the Planet will open later this year on Arizona State University’s campus. This research and innovation lab will specifically focus on testing out sustainable and plant-based offerings, specifically within the nine […]

How can colleges stand out in an increasingly commoditized higher ed? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, West Texas A&M president Walter Wendell recorded 3,000 personalized congratulations videos to admitted students designed to improve their yield. The takeaway? In an incredibly competitive higher ed market, bold moves like this are required to stand out. I can’t […]

Why is St. Norbert College on track for their biggest enrollment year ever? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, perhaps it’s because they stayed open in-person all throughout last year? There were seemingly large risks in that decision. But a year of “normalized” student experience? Campus visit opportunities remaining open throughout the year? Those ended up […]

Will the $10k degree change higher ed? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, Southern Utah University’s $9k bachelor’s in general studies designed for degree completion students attracted 111 students for the pilot this past fall, with hopes of eventually enrolling several thousand students. But any more than that and Southern Utah administrators believe it couldn’t scale […]

The Gates Foundation has proposed a new metric for determining college value. Reported by EdSurge, the new framework is designed to determine: after 10 years of earning a college degree, whether or not the graduate’s earning power is better than a high school graduate’s, plus able to recoup the cost of college; at or above […]

Valdosta State University is creating an online college designed to compete with the national players. Reported by Higher Ed Dive, offering eight bachelor’s degrees costing $299 per credit hour puts it 10% more affordable than Southern New Hampshire University and 33% more affordable than University of Phoenix. The takeaway? So Valdosta State is obviously going […]

Has the test-optional trend helped student underrepresentation? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, proponents of test-optional admissions for equity reasons are celebrating a new study published in the American Educational Research Journal, suggesting a 10-12% increase in first-time enrollment from underrepresented minority students in the first few years after a college moves to test-optional admissions. The […]

For many students, their fall college uncertainty comes from us telling them to wait. Reported by Inside Higher Ed, the perfect storm of test-only admissions, more students than ever applying to selective colleges, and colleges not knowing how to precisely forecast for an uncertain fall has created a new ‘waitlist generation’. The takeaway? 40% of […]

While the nation’s alcohol consumption rose during the pandemic, our students’ actually decreased. Reported by Inside Higher Ed, students aged 19 and older who changed residences during the pandemic reported a 49% reduction in their drinking last year, compared to a 21% reduction among students who maintained their residence. The takeaway? Less parties? Less drinking? […]

Does back to normal mean faculty training can stop? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, our institutions put a massive focus on online pedagogy training this past year. But if we’re moving back to in-person next year, can we stop? Or is our faculty’s proficiency as educators, not merely subject matter experts, the singular difference in […]

Did we sell any undergrads on long-term online education last year? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, a new survey from Maguire Associates suggests that a majority of first-year college prospects would still prefer fall classes be held face-to-face. And nearly half of transfer students still want in-person instruction this fall, after only 70% self-reporting to […]

The most selective schools got even more selective’r this year Reported by Inside Higher Ed, despite a very difficult enrollment year in the aggregate for higher education, many of the most selective institutions had their highest app years ever. This is partially because the test-optional policy from COVID’s interference with SAT and ACT test taking […]

New Jersey has an ambitious plan to get 65% of their working-age adults a credential by 2025. Reported by Higher Ed Dive, more than just fingers-crossed wishful thinking, New Jersey has  developed a partnership with non-profit course provider, Modern States, to provide “freshman year for free”, allowing students to complete the self-paced courses and then […]

Will Florida start surveying students on their perceived freedom of speech? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, Florida’s legislature has approved a bill requiring their state’s public colleges to administer an annual survey designed to gauge student and staff perceptions regarding their own freedom of expression. The takeaway? While many argue the bill is redundant to […]

Surprise. It turns out faculty don’t like the idea of their own institutions becoming consolidated. Reported by Higher Ed Dive, nearly 70% of faculty within Pennsylvania’s state system don’t approve of the plan to consolidate their six institutions into two, despite enrollment within the six having trended downward over the past decade. The takeaway? Getting […]

High-income students are the most likely to complete their FAFSA. Reported by Higher Ed Dive, a new EAB survey shows that 80% of high school seniors have now completed the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). But of those 20% who haven’t, the share of those being low-income students is double that of high-income […]

Will the pandemic expedite college closures or provide a federal relief life raft? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, prior to the pandemic, many experts were predicting an onslaught of college closures. And despite one of the roughest enrollment years in recent history due to the pandemic, less than a dozen nonprofit institutions have closed their […]

Does the flipped classroom model over-estimate students’ self-motivation? Reported by EdSurge, the flipped classroom assumes we live in a world where information is abundant and largely free. And in that world, our professors need not be the gatekeepers of the knowledge itself, but of the application and learning processes. And therefore, couldn’t we save a […]

Americans don’t negotiate with terrorists. Unless we’re American colleges, and just think paying them off is easier. Reported by Higher Ed Dive, cybersecurity targets on colleges have become increasingly aggressive, with attacks having doubled between 2019 and 2020, costing colleges nearly a half million dollars on ransom pay out on average. While some institutions like […]

Will other colleges follow Rutger’s vaccine mandate? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, Rutgers University was the first institution to announce a vaccine requirement for students to be able to return to campus this fall. While requiring vaccination for on-campus learning is common at most institutions, COVID-19 vaccines are only approved by the FDA under an […]

Will higher ed restructure around a learners-first framework? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, The Presidents Forum composed of college and university presidents and chancellors has developed 10 guiding principles for reinventing higher education, including a focus on learner objectives, an embrace of lifelong learning, and signaling through skills. The takeaway? It feels like higher ed […]

Will state relief money prioritize college-employer partnerships? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, California’s new budget includes nearly $49 billion in higher education investment, including $1 billion to establish a career development program to link campuses with employers. The takeaway? This is our chance, higher ed friends. We’ve seen some healthy strides in the last handful […]

Is a new XPrize the solution for finding new higher ed innovation? Reported by EdSurge, while giant prize contests have been successful in accelerating innovation in other industries such as commercial space flight, will those same incentives work in the higher education learning sciences? The U.S. Dept. of Education’s new Digital Learning Challenge XPrize is […]

Is there room for VR in higher ed’s future? Reported by EdSurge, from Oculus, Google Glass, and Pokemon Go, the fad of virtual and augmented reality has always felt promising, but has yet to achieve super deep mainstream status. And with the past year’s push to online education and many witnessing both the pros and […]

What does Coursera going public mean for its growth plans? Reported by EdSurge, raising $250 million at more than a $3.6 billion valuation implies massive growth hopes for the company that already serves 77 million registered learners. But how to scale? Because currently they only work with 150 selective colleges and universities, and seem to […]

Historically, students have chosen college as a pathway to work. But is that script starting to flip? Reported by EdSurge, more and more people are able to say, “I studied IT at Google.” “I studied computer science at IBM.” “I studied marketing at Hubspot.” There is a parallel credential track and pathway on the employer […]

California’s plan to increase in-state graduation rates? Let their community colleges offer more bachelor’s degrees. Reported by Higher Ed Dive, new California bills look to expand the number and options of bachelor’s degrees offered by community colleges (contingent on them not overlapping with public university offerings). The goals here are to provide more affordable bachelor’s […]

Will Kansas set the precedent for a full 2020 pandemic tuition refund? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, Kansas state lawmakers are promoting a proposal that would require public institutions to refund half of student’s tuition dollars for any instructional days made virtual due to the pandemic, estimated at more than $150 million dollars. The takeaway? […]

What if our credentials aren’t enough to convince employers that our students have strong soft skills? Because 40% of recruiters believe employers aren’t, according to a 2019 Ellucian survey. Reported by Higher Ed Dive, the non-profit Education Design Lab has launched a new microcredentials platform that allows colleges and universities to badge their soft skills, […]

Will Engageli win the higher ed ZOOM wars? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, Engageli raised $33 million in funding in their Series A round, bringing their total funding raised up to $47 million. While many companies are building higher ed-specific functionality on top of the ZOOM platform, Engageli is a standalone platform and competitor to […]

The spring semester has continued higher ed’s enrollment slide. Reported by Higher Ed Dive, undergraduate enrollment fell 3.3% compared to last spring, which fell 1.1% from the pre-pandemic year prior. Those hit hardest? Community college enrollment with a 10% decline year-over-year – institutions who specifically serve the students from families likely hardest hit economically from […]

Which institutions will mandate COVID vaccinations prior to returning to campus? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, Rutgers University announced their plans to require students to be vaccinated for COVID prior to returning to campus this fall. While there is a lot of precedent for this kind of decision, the lack of long-tail studies on this […]

Arizona’s community colleges can now offer 4-year bachelor’s degrees. Reported by Higher Ed Dive, if the community college can demonstrate how the 4-year program meets current workforce needs and existing student demand not solved for by other four-year colleges, they will now be eligible for approval. This brings the total to about two dozen states […]

Reported by Higher Ed Dive, while many universities are trying to figure out the $10,000 degree, Southern Utah University just released a $9,000 one. President Scott Wyatt is looking to offer this general studies degree completion bachelor’s at-cost in alignment to their mission of social mobility. To keep costs low, the degree has a very […]

What could a fully remote faculty workforce look like? Reported by EdSurge, due to the pandemic’s push away from in-person courses, that begs the question of where our faculty need to be to teach them? Will the market dynamics of adjunct and full-time faculty change even further? Will institutions start hiring highly-acclaimed adjuncts to teach […]

Will the rise of esports further our college sports gender gap? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, while the surging popularity of esports has been an absolutely fascinating cross-disciplinary and athletic story, recent analysis from the Associated Press shows that 88% of scholarships for college esports programs are going to male students, with 90% of the […]

What are a college’s due diligence responsibilities in sniffing out admissions fraud from incoming students? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, individuals were recently indicted for helping international students gain “guaranteed” admission to selective colleges in exchange for thousands of dollars in fees. These fees paid for essays, doctored transcripts, fill-in takers for TOEFL and SAT […]

New life expectancy data provides a new morbid higher ed value prop. Reported by Inside Higher Ed, a college degree is now a better indicator of life expectancy than race. And a 25-year old American adult with a bachelor’s degree now has a 3.1 years longer life expectancy than those without a degree. The takeaway? […]

650,000 of our higher ed colleagues lost their jobs last year. Reported by Inside Higher Ed, colleges and universities have cut 13% of their workforce since last year, aligned closely with the 14% decline experienced in institutional revenue. The takeaway? Many of these jobs were likely on-campus roles. And as we start to move back […]

Will Biden make community college free? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, President Biden unveiled his $109 billion plan for tuition-free community college. In this plan, many states will be provided $3 in federal funding for every $1 they commit in state funding to make the first two years of community college tuition free for the […]

Southern New Hampshire University just bought a coding bootcamp. Reported by Higher Ed Dive, SNHU has acquired boot camp provider, Kenzie Academy. Back in 2015, SNHU announced a partnership with Flatiron School to combine their degree program with a bootcamp curriculum and apprenticeship. But now, they’re apparently planning to integrate the bootcamp model more directly […]

Is higher ed going to win the adult upskilling game? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, nearly half of all Americans between the ages of 25-64 don’t have a postsecondary credential. At the same time, the pandemic fast-forwarded a whole lot of employer changes, including comfortability with remote and outsourced employees. More and more of these […]

Did our campus improvement plans reset with COVID? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, many of our priority campus improvement plans before COVID are likely at the back of the line today. And even very recent builds are being looked at as problematic today if they don’t have state of the art HVAC systems or prioritize […]

Do the humanities need saving or storytelling? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, humanities departments across higher ed have been suffering from declining enrollments. And yet some departments are growing through creative strategies such as student ambassadors for the department, cross-university partnerships, events and takeovers of shared campus spaces, and advertising the outcomes of their alumni […]

Does education faddism prevent us from focusing on good teaching? Reported by EdSurge, we’re always on the lookout for the silver bullet to make education better, cheaper and more scalable? Can self-paced solve everything? Can adaptive learning solve everything? And while these pursuits toward the 10x’ing of higher education are likely extraordinarily important, do they […]

What if coding bootcamps don’t teach our students to be good citizens, too? Reported by EdSurge, the morality of our technology and AI are starting to come into question. With wrongful arrests from facial recognition software, using surveillance monitoring in certain areas of the city and not others, and more being called into question. The […]

Are students becoming increasingly hesitant to engage in discourse? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, a survey from Heterdox Academy found that 60% of students were hesitant to talk with classmates and professors about certain issues in the six weeks leading up to the 2020 election. This hesitancy differed based on the student’s own political affiliation. […]

The decline in K12 catholic student enrollment is negatively affecting the Catholic college pipeline as well. Reported by Inside Higher Ed, Roman Catholic K12 enrollment declined by 6.4% this fall, the largest annual drop in the past 50 years. The strongest feeders for our catholic colleges and universities? These very K12 catholic schools. The takeaway? […]

Are our students data points or data users? Reported by EdSurge, higher ed is getting more and more savvy about using data to improve the student experience, optimize the enrollment process, and maximize revenue. But should we be the only ones using this data, or should we be transparently empowering our students to see and […]

Looking back, what can we learn from the low evaluation scores we received from our students from our emergency remote teaching? Reported by EdSurge, the vast majority of student dissatisfaction from our emergency remote learning last spring and summer came from higher ed’s slow learning curve on how different the online classroom needed to be […]

Will new COVID variants impact college re-opening plans? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, while the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine success rates put college re-opening plans in hyperdrive, three new variants are creating concern that we may re-open too early. The takeaway? While we don’t yet fully understand these vaccines’ effectiveness against these new variants, college […]

Do income share agreement models de-risk students or institutions? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, many institutions are experimenting with income share agreements, and many of the same are reporting positive early feedback. But for many of these pilots, their ISAs are granted exclusively to high-achieving students, and these aren’t necessarily the students we’re trying to […]

Has your institution been ransomwared yet? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, the University of California San Franscisco School of Medicine paid hackers $1.14 million in ransom to prevent the release of data, with ransomware attacks costing institutions an average of $447,000 in 2020. And a recent BlueVoyant study of 30 institutions reported that all 30 […]

Are our graduates getting better at speaking about their skills to their prospective employers? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, much has been said about the disconnect between the education higher ed is providing and the skills employers are looking for. But a new survey from the Association of American Colleges and Universities reports that 87% […]

A quick reminder that pre-pandemic, higher ed was making some serious degree completion progress. Reported by Higher Ed Dive, the total population aged 25 and over with at least a bachelor’s degree rose from 28% in 2009 to 32%  by 2019. Students who identified as black, native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander? They increased their degree attainment […]

Some colleges are moving away from traditional swag toward eco-conscious social-good swag for a socially conscious generation of students. Reported by Higher Ed Dive, The University of Puget Sound has shifted their $25k budget for admitted student swag toward letting their admitted students determine what local charities should receive the funds instead, setting an expectation […]

Virginia launches tuition-free community college for in-demand fields. Reported by Higher Ed Dive, Virginia governor Ralph Northam signed legislation designating that for low and middle-income students, degree programs targeting in-demand fields such as healthcare, computer science, and early childhood education will be tuition-free. The takeaway? While the Biden presidency has pledged for even more ambitious […]

Will Biden’s $100 billion broadband plan solve rural student college access? Reported by Vox, included in President Biden’s 2 trillion dollar American Jobs infrastructure proposal includes $100 billion designed to provide all Americans with affordable high-speed internet access. The takeaway? With 30 million Americans currently without access to any broadband, let alone affordable broadband, the […]

How can we make sure Course Hero doesn’t become college’s villain? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, Embry-Riddle University created a search engine to help their professors identify proprietary course materials uploaded to Course Hero, including homework assignments, quizzes, and tests, by students to help other students study. So far, this search engine has found 237,293 […]

Are online textbooks here to stay? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, while last year marked a massive uptick in online education, what about online textbooks? A full 62% of faculty used ebooks this past academic year, up from 53% the year prior. The takeaway? Nearly half of students still prefer print course materials according to […]

College endowment returns underperformed last year, too, returning only 1.8% year-over-year. Reported by Inside Higher Ed, while enrollment revenue suffered significantly across higher ed this past academic year, most college endowments also didn’t benefit from the tech stock market rally from last year, since higher ed endowments are more broadly invested in bonds and other […]

How determinant was our attitude going into COVID on our outcomes? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, a new study out of the University of Augsburg and the University of Manheim surveyed faculty attitudes going into their transition to remote instruction, and compared it against student ratings of their teaching quality. It turns out that the […]

What will a post-vaccination fall look like on our college campuses? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, the University of Wisconsin System is planning to hold 75% of their classes on-campus in person this fall, down only slightly from the 80% that were held in-person pre-pandemic. Is that too optimistic of a game plan? The takeaway? […]

What are the downsides of our ‘find yourself’ messaging we tell our students? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, while many colleges brand themselves as the place where students learn autonomy and self-discovery, the “hands-off” implication of that story may be precisely the wrong message for first-generation students who may need more help finding themselves in […]

Will Duolingo surpass TOEFL as the standard for our international student’s English testing? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, in the past 2 years, Duolingo has gone from their English language test being accepted by dozens of institutions up to more than 3,000 colleges today. In response, ETS, the maker of the TOEFL test, has released […]

Has online proctoring kept up with this past year’s leap in online education? Reported by EdSurge, students used to having built-in proctors with their in-person classes are now experiencing new opportunities and temptations to cheat they may never have had before. And professors are seeing cheating skyrocketing as a result, with a majority of students […]

Are most colleges effectively utilizing their alumni? Reported by EdSurge, most colleges are great at asking alumni for their money, but not themselves – for mentorship, advice and experiential learning opportunities. And yet, it’s hard to know which would actually be more valuable. While an estimated half of jobs come through networks and connections, only […]

Are anonymous apps a bastion of free speech, troll city, or both? Reported by EdSurge, you may remember Yik Yak’s short-lived life on college campuses back between 2014-2017. Some academic researchers point to most of the conversation on that anonymous app as mundane or even helpful places for people to share struggles about taboo subjects […]

New college graduates may have been impacted more than anyone during the pandemic from a job market perspective. Reported by EdSurge, new Burning Glass data has found a decreasing number of entry-level jobs that required a degree. Therefore, these new college graduates are sidelined along with workers who have much more experience than they do. […]

Are Google’s career certificates a threat to higher education? Reported by Inc., Google has released several new certificate programs on the Coursera platform, including data analytics, UX design, and project management. Each promising the skillset required for entry-level opportunities in high-demand fields, in only 6 months of part-time study, and for a total of $240 […]

Our students now have 1,000,000 different credentials they can earn. Reported by Higher Ed Dive, the latest count from non-profit Credential Engine puts the number of unique credentials, including degrees, certificates and badges students can earn in the U.S. over a million. Of these, more than 550,000 are from non-academic non-degree granting organizations, providing badges, […]

What were the incentives for in-person openings this past fall? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, a new working paper from College Crisis Initiative (C2i) out of Davidson College shows a significant correlation between those private nonprofit colleges with large international student populations and their propensity to open in-person this past fall. Not opening would not […]

What do institutions do with a $20 million surprise gift? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, Mackenzie Scott, former partner of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, gave $800 million of gifts in total to 42 different colleges and universities last year, many of those ones often overlooked by mega-donors – more than half which were historically black […]

When will our first 1-million student university arrive? Reported by Forbes, Brandon Busteed, President of University Partners at Kaplan is not only pitching but questioning why elite universities haven’t gotten here already. With enrollment in degree-seeking programs having decreased in each of the last 10 years, it is hard to imagine a reverse on this […]

Is the HyFlex model higher ed’s future? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, the hybrid-flexible model allows students to participate online or in-person as they please, per their schedule and preference. The ultimate in flexibility, it also requires two simultaneous modality setups for each and every class. Yet, many of our education systems have been experimenting […]

Will getting to herd immunity at our colleges be more difficult than we think? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, a recent survey from College Pulse shows that only 7 out 10 undergraduates believe that their college can force them to get vaccinated in order to attend. And with 1/3 of all students surveyed concerned about […]

Will our newfound agility remain after the pandemic? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, Florida International University President Mark Rosenberg’s pandemic playbook became one of flexibility and creativity. And while in this world of partial chaos, he admits that managing the expectations of so many different stakeholders can be extraordinarily difficult, the benefits of improvisational thinking […]

Has pandemic marketing hurt and helped certain institutions more than others? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, the institutions with the strongest brand marketing presence pre-pandemic may not have translated to a digital-exclusive pandemic environment. But for those who already had a strong digital presence? Those who were already used to online admissions events? Those who […]

1/3 of students seeking campus counseling are doing so because of the pandemic. Reported by Inside Higher Ed, a new report by the Center for Collegiate Mental Health, which includes survey data from 50,000 students who visited 1 of 143 campus counseling centers during the previous academic team, shows that 33% of these visitors sought […]

Is getting back to normal dependent on our student’s willingness to vaccinate? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, a new College Pulse survey suggests that 75% of students will be getting the coronavirus vaccine as soon as its made available to them. But what does that 25% left mean? Will institutions require students vaccinate to return […]

D.C. leads the nation in student debt Reported by Inside Higher Ed, by the end of 2020, the average loan balance in the District of Columbia was $54,982, with a full 16% of the D.C. population sitting with an outstanding student loan. This compares to North Dakota’s average student loan balance coming in at about […]

What do 5G and 10G mean for the future of online education? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, this pandemic brought to light the broadband access issues we still have across the country affecting so many of our students. And so, while 5G and 10G offer the promise of incredible data collection and interactivity, just making […]

Telling students college is worth it isn’t enough. Reported by EdSurge, the statistic that students with a bachelor’s degree earn 84% in their lifetime than those who don’t is likely on almost every college’s website. Yet the overwhelmingly quantitative stories alone don’t seem to be enough to rid the growing questioning of the ROI of […]

Do colleges owe their students an apology? Reported by EdSurge, the pandemic caught the world off-guard and ill-prepared. But does that mean that higher ed shouldn’t take accountability for any of the actions or inactions they’ve made since last March? Perhaps sitting in a financial position of weakness like most colleges are right now, those […]

Columbia University students have entered a tuition strike. Reported by Higher Ed Dive, while the institution froze their undergraduate tuition for this academic year during the pandemic at $61,000 a year, the highest private tuition in the country, students are demanding systemic changes to institutional policy, including a 10% tuition reduction, a 10% increase in […]

Is our test-optional emergency plan becoming test-optional permanent? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, Colorado lawmakers have introduced a bill which would remove the requirement for public colleges to use a national assessment score, such as the ACT or SAT, from their admissions criteria altogether. Popularized over the past five years by institutions who looked into […]

How can we ensure that our graduates get jobs that non-graduates can’t? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, a new report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows that 41% of recent college graduates work in jobs that don’t require a degree. Which begs the question, is our curriculum truly preparing students for success […]

What is the “Common App Effect” on enrollment? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, with more than 900 institutions now participating in the Common Application, which allows students to complete one application and submit to any participating members, subject to certain additional application fees and supplemental application information. And yet, applications to the largest institutions grew […]

Are demographic trends in higher ed’s favor? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, Nathan D. Grawe’s new book, The Agile College, gives a similarly concerning story about higher ed demographics as his previous treatise, Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education. Now with data projections peeking into the mid-2030s, falling birth rate trends paint a much […]

Parents learn free at Holy Names University? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, through HNU’s Parent Promise Program, up to two parents or guardians of enrolled students can register for two free undergraduate courses. While this feels like a really clever marketing campaign, it’s also intended to serve as a real enrollment driver. The takeaway? While […]

New York may provide priority admission to nursing students. Reported by Higher Ed Dive, the pandemic has exacerbated what was already a critical nationwide nursing shortage. Proposed legislation would prioritize licensed RNs for admission into New York’s public colleges. The takeaway? With the pandemic causing nursing instructors to quit their jobs, and with fewer hospitals […]

We are hard-wired toward faces. How should that inform our pedagogy when designing online courses? Reported by EdSurge, researchers at UC Santa Barbara are testing the theory of embodied instruction, which suggests that students rely on the instructor’s body for cues on where and what to focus their attention. But can the professor also distract […]

What does AI-empowered teaching look like? Reported by EdSurge, Duke University’s Jon Reifschneider has been experimenting with artificial intelligence to get a better understanding of exactly where his online students are in terms of understanding with the course curriculum. By identifying topical patterns of common struggle, Jon is able to both spend extra time during […]

Will the short-term credential ever be worth the same as a degree? Reported by EdSurge, while more and more institutions are building new workforce credentialing pathways, what will make these short-term credentials equal in the eyes of the market? And is there an argument to be made that they might be even more valuable from […]

Will the pandemic finally propel short-term certifications to increased legitimacy? Reported by EdSurge, while to move to skills-based hiring has been a slow one, the speed at which the economy is shifting will force quicker educational solves in order to keep up with the external transformation. And in that world, shorter-term skills training programs and […]

Loan repayment data has been added to the College Scorecard. Reported by Inside Higher Ed, students can now see the percentage of student borrowers who fall into different loan repayment statuses after entering repayment. This long asked for brand new addition to the College Scorecard is designed to help better understand real student outcomes as […]

Will for-profit institutions be specifically targeted under a Biden administration? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, Jason Altmire, President and CEO of Career Education Colleges and Universities has penned an open letter to the Biden Administration, out of concern that past Obama administration rules eliminated by the previous education secretary Betsy DeVos would be reestablished. Included […]

Are we seeing a Fauci bump in our health science degree programs? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, in a world of disappointing higher ed enrollment stories, medical school applications are up 18% year over year. Nursing applications are similarly up 6% year over year. The takeaway? Seeing a public health pandemic, wanting to be a […]

Pitzer College now offers bachelor’s degree pathways for incarcerated citizens. Reported by Inside Higher Ed, Pitzer College’s Inside-Out program is designed to teach incarcerated students in tandem with traditional students who travel to the prison facility to be taught. Available only to those incarcerated students who had already earned an associate’s degree and were scheduled […]

May the best digital recruiters win. Reported by Higher Ed Dive, for the college who historically made their class through ACT list buys, direct mail, and lots of travel and events, this year is an entirely new learning curve. And it’s those institutions who had to rely on, and get great at, digital marketing and […]

Can a guided pathways approach help improve our student retention rates? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, this approach has helped Cleveland State Community College increase their retention rate by 8.5% since 2015. This includes structured program mapping and advising support to help students understand exactly what courses they need to take to stay on track, […]

What will help tip people’s trust back toward higher education? Because reported by Higher Ed Dive, higher education has a serious trust issue. With more and more prospective students questioning the price, questioning the value, and questioning whether or not to enroll at all. The College Scorecard was a federal attempt to create both better […]

Will higher ed ever get back the 500,000 students who didn’t enroll this year due to COVID? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, undergraduate enrollment dropped 3.6% year-over-year, a difference of more than 560,000 students, including a whopping 327,500 fewer first-year students, a 13.1% decrease from the prior year. The takeaway? Many students didn’t see the […]

If the CDC recommends universal testing, can all colleges afford it? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, while The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have not yet recommended universal testing, the American College Health Association now recommends colleges and universities should test both students and employees twice a week to manage control over the virus […]

Are last 2-year universities an inevitable evolution of continued online education growth? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, companies like StraighterLine, Outlier, and Coursera have also made venture capital fundraising waves recently to provide students with gen ed classes pre-approved as transfer courses to prominent institutions. The takeaway? For those students who choose online education as […]

Is remote proctoring in real legal danger? Reported by EdSurge, more than 2,000 parents have signed a letter urging McGraw-Hill to end their relationships with proctoring software company, Proctorio. One critique in this letter that is shared with many AI photo/video identification software programs is the increased difficulty to locate students of color in the […]

The recession came for our flagships, too. Reported by Higher Ed Dive, The University of Vermont is reporting that 27 of their academic programs are on the chopping block due to budget fallouts. The takeaway? With many state universities offering faculty buyouts, and being forced to layoff hundreds of others, short of a big federal […]

What if employers start recognizing skills, but not degrees? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, more than 80 member companies including Walmart and General Motors have signed onto Business Roundtable’s new career pathways initiative, specifically designed to improve equity and diversity in the workplace. The takeaway? Our degree programs are only as strong as the employer […]

Will next fall be in-person? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, The California State University system has formally announced their plans to be largely in-person next fall, despite being primarily online this spring, hoping to provide students with enough heads-up to be confident in their enrollment decisions as they begin to make them. While the logistical […]

How far ahead of the vaccine line will our faculty be in front of our students? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, in New York, Oklahoma and Arkansas, college staff are already included in priority groups and currently eligible to receive the vaccine. The takeaway? Are our spring, summer, and fall campus plans contingent on our […]

How have test-optional admission policies affected elite colleges? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, New York University for instance has already received more than 100,000 applications from first-year students for next fall, a 20% increase from last year, of which NYU will enroll no more than 6,500 of. The takeaway? The decreased hurdle of certain ACT […]

The rate of high school graduates entering college this fall dropped a whopping 22% year-over-year. Reported by Higher Ed Dive, while all high school groups declined this year, urban, low-income and minority student schools sent even fewer graduates to college, widening already existent enrollment gaps. The takeaway? Not only has the pandemic created an existential […]

Are hate crime reports increasing black student enrollment to HBCUs? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, a recent paper published by Stanford University’s Center for Education Policy Analysis shows a 20% enrollment increase by first-time black college students at HBCUs in states where hate crime reports have increased since 2016. The takeaway? The political climate of […]

How can we solve for the rural student underrepresentation problem in higher ed? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, five participating rural community colleges will be working with Educational Design Lab over the next five years to determine new educational models and pathways for rural student success through the help of a $1.9 million grant from […]

Do we need a new framework for incorporating industry certifications into degree programs? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, Workcred has partnered with several higher education associations to develop one. This 6-step framework includes creating a common language around credentialing, aligning curriculum with certification content, and identifying how students can share their credentials with employers. The […]

What does a Biden presidency mean for higher ed relief? Reported by The Institute for College Access & Success, since the passage of the CARES Act last March, which provided $30.8 billion through its Education Relief Fund, colleges have requested an additional $120 billion in federal aid relief. The takeaway, while the most recent relief […]

How did colleges self-police their COVID testing protocols last fall? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, survey results from the American College Health Association show that only 37.2% of colleges tested students upon their arrival to campus last fall. The takeaway? Will a new Biden presidency and administration usher in a clearer national strategy on testing […]

COVID compliance enforced by a jury of your student peers? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, Rice University’s COVID Community Court is a student-led judiciary responsible for sentencing on COVID non-compliance cases, including fines, community service, and education courses. The takeaway? Is peer-to-peer punishment easier to accept than a top-down system of university rules enforcement? And […]

Why hasn’t Auburn University increased their black student representation? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, while the state of Alabama’s black population represents 26% of all citizens, Auburn University’s black population is only 5%. But despite a task force being assembled in 2015 to address these concerns, which did indeed provide recommendations including intentional recruitment strategies […]

Could our teaching assistants be replaced with AI’s creating AIs? Reported by EdSurge, historically the cost of building an AI tutoring tool – up to 1,000 faculty hours – may not be worth the time you’d save by creating one. But now Georgia Institute of Technology is working on an artificially intelligent system that can […]

Are colleges more excited about income share agreements than students? Reported by EdSurge, while more than 60 colleges now offer income share agreements that provide for student loan financing payback dependent on the student’s post-graduate income, student awareness of these programs still appears to be low, and their skepticism high. The takeaway? Many of us […]

Do remedial classes help students if they don’t count toward their degree? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, with research showing that students are more likely to complete transfer-level math and English courses if they can earn credit for them, California created a bill in 2018 which restricts community colleges from requiring remedial courses, which has […]

The biggest online learning lesson from the pandemic? That we need to be ready to teach through the next one. Reported by Inside Higher Ed, the institutions who were the most ready for an immediate transition to online learning were the institutions who had already experienced significant disruption in the past, often midwestern schools due […]

Where’s this recession’s higher ed bump? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, more than 1/3 of prospective college students are reconsidering higher education. Is that true for the market’s incumbent workforce as well? Because in past recessions, higher ed typically sees enrollment growth from adults in the workforce looking to upskill and become more marketable. But […]

90% of students are unsatisfied but staying put. Reported by Inside Higher Ed, according to a new survey by Anthology, nearly 90% of students plan on re-enrolling at the same college this spring they attended in the fall. This despite more than 32% of students saying they didn’t “feel included” in a friend circle and […]

A Morehouse benefactor is now backing income-based financing for HBCU’s. Reported by EdSurge, Vista Equity Partners CEO Robert E. Smith, who paid $34 million to settle the loan debt for Morehouse College’s graduates back in 2019, has now set up the Student Freedom Initiative, designed to provide financial support for HBCU students through income-based financing. […]

Will the pandemic put even more pressure on the existing college preparedness problem? Reported by EdSurge, prior to the pandemic, according to the Community College Research Center, nearly 2/3 of entering community college students lacked the math and language skills necessary for college-level placement. And prior developmental education interventions have proven less than effective, with […]

Could colleges become vaccine administration sites? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, the CDC has urged for the consideration of college campuses as vaccine administration sites. Often located centrally, and with large square footage in campus parking lots, dining halls, and residence halls, colleges could play a critical role in helping to immunize not only their […]

What if faculty say no to our back-to-campus plans? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, Wentworth Institute of Technology faculty’s response to plans for increased in-person instruction this spring was a vote of no confidence in the institution’s president and administration. These faculty are worried about the increased COVID-19 exposure required with the institution’s insistence that […]

50 liberal arts colleges are teaming up to fight systemic racism. Reported by Higher Ed Dive, the Liberal Arts Colleges Racial Equity Leadership Alliance will host virtual meetings about equity for up to 8 members for participating institutions each month, in exchange for an $18,000/yr membership fee. The takeaway? This is a great example of […]

Is higher ed’s usual recession bump finally coming? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, graduate student enrollment growth doubled year-over-year, up 2.9% since last fall. All while online-primary colleges’ graduate enrollment grew a whopping 9.7%. The takeaway? Recessions often send employees looking to up-skill back to our campuses. Are we ready to make good on the […]

While college esports were growing in popularity before the pandemic, they haven’t slowed down like other sports during the pandemic either. Reported by Higher Ed Dive, while most college sports have been hit hard this year in some way or another, esports haven’t suffered in the same way. In fact, at Shenandoah University in Virginia, […]

Will states start only funding online-only education? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, while higher ed is in serious need for state and federal funding after this disruptive year, some legislators, including David Ramadan, former member of the Virginia House of Delegates, have begun questioning funding the broader education infrastructure budget vs. going all-in on virtual […]

The Common App has dropped its discharge question for military veterans. Reported by Inside Higher Ed, 80% of those veterans who skipped that question about “reason for discharge” failed to complete the application altogether. And after surveying their members, 59% of institutions claimed this answer was never necessary to make an admissions decision. The takeaway? […]

Are students happier with virtual learning this fall, or merely getting used to it? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, a Top Hat survey of 3,400 undergraduates shows slight improvements from the same survey this spring, including a 5 point improvement in students claiming they had regular access to their instructors, and a 4 point improvement […]

Could next fall’s incoming class be even smaller than this year’s? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, 47% of all high school seniors have not applied to a single college yet. Likely because they don’t yet know what kind of college experience they’d be applying to. Because if you remember, last March, many students were already […]

What’s happening for colleges refusing to go test-optional? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, Florida for instance, is still requiring their incoming students to take either the ACT or SAT as an admission requirement. This despite 30% of national testing centers currently remaining closed. The results? The 12 universities in the State University System of Florida […]

Are class “afterparties” the solution to remote student engagement? Reported by EdSurge, Bonni Stachowiak from Vanguard University has started bookending her classes with an “after party”. Following an active learning classroom where students engage in activities, often muted and with their cameras off, she then helps students with the reading and condenses some of it […]

Will a $10k bachelor’s actually help the very students it was designed to? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, Southern New Hampshire and other colleges are racing towards the design of a $10k degree. But as President Paul LeBlanc states, the secret is “deciding where and how human interaction takes place”. And this makes sense. It […]

Colleges are tightening up their coronavirus crackdown policies on students. Reported by Higher Ed Dive, as the fall term progresses and national COVID numbers get worse and worse, more colleges are ramping up their student safety policies to avoid facing a broader shutdown. Boston University has dropped their student gathering maximum from 25 to 10. […]

Does America need a bridge institution between high school and college? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, the college readiness arm of Western Governors University, WGU Academy, has spun off into a separate nonprofit. Designed for students not quite ready for standard admission, WGU Academy offers competency-based courses at a flat $150/month fee, including non-credit readiness […]

Can private college afford another down year? Reported by Higher Ed Dive, 75% of private colleges predict their net tuition revenue will decline in 2021 according to Moody’s Investors Service. And in this world, what happens? According to Edmit, more than 345 private nonprofit colleges could close within the next six years. Perhaps even sooner. […]

Has the University of Maryland figured out how to re-enroll stop-outs? Reported by Education Dive, a new campaign designed to re-enroll students with more than 60 credits completed successfully did so with 123 ex-students this fall, bringing in roughly $385,000 in what would have been lost tuition revenue through this campaign. The secret? They were […]

Are new programs the key to new enrollments? Reported by Education Dive, while many institutions have sought growth through the launch of new market-friendly programs, a new Burning Glass report found that of the more than 10,000 programs launched in 2013 and 2014, fewer than half of those programs had more than 5 graduates in […]

How should we judge an institution’s response to a faculty COVID death? Reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education, Collin College President Neil Matkin has been criticized by faculty for announcing the death of one of their colleague’s at the bottom of an email titled, “Happy Thanksgiving!” suggesting this afterthought is emblematic of the institution’s […]

Princeton University will bring their undergrads back this spring. Reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education, with their campus currently open only for graduate students, President Christopher Eisgruber announced a “highly constrained on-campus experience” for their undergraduate students this spring. The takeaway? With prohibited social gatherings and single-occupancy housing, the question will be if students […]

Small groups to student retention’s rescue? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, a new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that while there was a demonstrated decrease in student learning during the pandemic spring, the students who suffered the least were the ones in classes with planned peer interactions. The takeaway? We […]

48% of early-career faculty are considering leaving higher ed. Reported by Inside Higher Ed, while the early stress of the pandemic took a heavy toll on our faculty, a new study from Course Hero shows that its unceasing is driving many to consider leaving the field altogether. Faculty are not only being asked to teach […]

What are new EdTech dollars focused on? Reported by Education Dive, one of the most interesting challenges on the table is solving videoconferencing specifically for the classroom. Because while platforms like ZOOM are great about getting everyone’s face on a screen, ZOOM wasn’t designed for universities. Some providers like Engageli are working to build their […]

What will the free college debate look like under President Biden? Reported by Education Dive, free public four-year college appears to be on the table. But Biden’s original plan includes the individual states funding 1/3 of the costs, and in a COVID recession, that may be a difficult political possibility for financially devastated states. Similarly, […]

How well have traditionally hands-on programs transitioned online during COVID? Reported by Education Dive, while nursing and veterinary programs found their clinical scenarios the most difficult to reproduce online, many have found novel solutions since, including shipping animal models directly to students to practice surgical techniques over webcams. Other clinical scenarios have proven even easier […]

Netflix is partnering with an HBCU to provide tuition-free technology boot camps. Reported by Education Dive, Netflix is launching and fully funding three technology boot camps with Norfolk State University, including Java Engineering, UX/UI Design, and Data Science program tracks. Netflix’s stated goal is to solve the underrepresentation problem in the tech industry. And in […]

Prior learning assessments work to encourage degree completion, but too few take advantage of it. Reported by Education Dive, new research from the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning and the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education found that only 11% of adult students earn PLA credit. But for those who do, 49% earn their […]

Many colleges were criticized for bringing their students back to campus during a pandemic. Should they also be criticized if they send them home for winter break? Reported by Education Dive, while many outbreaks this fall have been shown to square centrally in college towns, a new fear has become what happens when we send […]

How can we engage distracted students? Reported by EdSurge, a new book by Dr. James Lang, “Distracted: Why Students Can’t Focus and What You Can Do About It” offers some research-backed suggestions. One critical one?  That doing “anything” for a long time increases attention-fatigue. Whether it’s a 75-minute lecture or a 75-minute discussion, the problem […]

First-year college student enrollment is down 16% this year. Who’s missing? Reported by EdSurge, this national enrollment drop is largest at community colleges with first-year community college student enrollment down a whopping 23% year over year, suggesting that the same students most economically disadvantaged by the pandemic and its impacting recession are of course the […]

What if college moves to pass/fail grading? Reported by Education Dive, many institutions citing the high stress-levels amongst their students, have moved to a pass/fail grading system to ensure that earning a particular grade isn’t serving as an additional stressor for them. The takeaway? Will this be a COVID-inspired trend that has sticking power? Especially […]

What if colleges offered official credit for MOOCs? Reported by EdSurge, Coursera has offered Coursera for Campus for free since March, to help colleges transition to online learning, offering their courseware to become part of an institutions’ for-credit courses. The takeaway? What if a college used Coursera’s more than 4,000 existing courses to supplement their […]

Is COVID widening the K12 enrichment gap? Reported by EdSurge, approximately 70% of afterschool providers closed during the pandemic. Low-income families who depend on these services to keep up and get ahead academically have been set back during COVID. All while high-income families are increasing their extracurricular supplements through online courses, classes and programs. The […]

ACT scores have dropped to their lowest level in 10 years. Reported by Inside Higher Ed, only 26% of ACT-tested students met all four ACT College Readiness Benchmarks this year, with half of underserved students (low-income, minority, and/or first-gen college students) meeting none of these benchmarks. The takeaway? This was of course a particularly disruptive […]

How can we increase student-to-student engagement online? Reported by EdSurge, so much focus has been made on replicating the knowledge transfer process from in-person to online, potentially overlooking the similarly critical pedagogical reality of peer support. So how do we connect students with each other? Some faculty are using discussion prompts on their LMS to […]

Every college has a viewbook. To tell students what makes them different. But why use the exact same format everyone else is using to explain why you’re “different”? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, that’s why Hampden-Sydney College traded in their viewbook for a magazine. Stories. Articles. Humor. And college advice. The takeaway?  This follows a […]

Enrollment fell at more than half of colleges this fall. Reported by Education Dive, slightly more than half of college presidents surveyed by the American Council on Education (ACE) claim that their total enrollment is lower this fall than a year ago. And since COVID was likely not yet top of mind when determining this […]

What if students graduated high school with their associate’s degree? Reported by Education Dive, through Lorain County Community College’s MyUniversity program, students can graduate their area high school with 71 free college credits through a dual enrollment program, pre-accepted by colleges throughout the country, leaving only a few semesters left to graduate with a full […]

The vast majority of colleges offering in-person classes don’t have clear COVID testing plans. Reported by Education Dive, a new report by NPR and Davidson College’s College Crisis Initiative found that only a quarter of mid-sized colleges or larger with enrollments higher than 5,000 students offering in-person classes are also testing students en masse or […]

Can we mourn our student and faculty coronavirus victims without being culpable? Reported by Education Dive, a recent announcement about a student death at Appalachian State University brought up this ethical question when the university’s death announcement included facts about the student’s off-campus residence and their only-online course enrollments. This left those in the campus […]

A pants-optional online classroom? Reported by EdSurge, faculty pausing mid-lecture to remind a student they need to be wearing pants while on ZOOM isn’t even the weirdest classroom norm being violated or determined this fall. From not bringing your laptop to the bathroom, to not drinking alcohol on-camera during class – these seemingly “obvious” etiquettes […]

Are our faculty finally being won over by online learning? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, a new Tyton Partners survey shows that faculty who believe online learning is effective has increased from 39% to 49% since May. The takeaway? While still under 50%, online education still clearly has a long way to go to get […]

Does your transfer program need to start in the student’s first term at their local community college? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, while many institutions have put together some very strong transfer “welcome” programs to try and match the first-year experience their traditional students receive, a new study published in Educational Researcher suggest that this […]

Does going test-optional remove a popular marketing channel from higher ed’s arsenal? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, with many institutions announcing they will be offering a test-optional admissions process for the next school year, fewer and fewer  students will likely be taking the ACT and SAT this year, especially given the health risks of doing […]

There’s new data in the skills vs. liberal arts debate. Reported by Education Dive, new research from Ithaka S&R shows that low-income students who attend liberal arts-focused colleges have a higher chance of becoming higher-income adults. The takeaway? With so much talk and trends toward certificate programs and immediate ROI education, this study should at […]

Dickinson College is fighting to make their international students feel welcome from a distance. Reported by Education Dive, with the coronavirus pandemic and federal law restricting travel, college leaders are creating virtual and in-person alternatives for their international students unable to return to campus. By partnering with their global partner universities, Dickinson is working to […]

Do students need success coaches or therapists? Reported by Education Dive, in a recent survey of more than 45,000 students from public research universities, 1/3 screened positive for major depressive disorder, and nearly 40% screened positive for generalized anxiety disorder. In even more troubling news, 60% of students in a separate survey said the pandemic […]

Can states no longer afford their free college plans? Reported by Education Dive, Oregon lawmakers have cut their state’s free college program funding by $3.6 million, revoking some already offered student grants. Similarly, New York is publicly considering a reduction of their free tuition scholarships to prioritize current recipients. The takeaway? Some dramatic budget priorities […]

Reported by Education Dive, Google has launched a million dollar digital skills training initiative with 20 historically black colleges and universities. The semester-long digital training program is designed to help students, especially first-generation students, navigate the nuances of corporate America. The takeaway? This Grow with Google HBCU Career Readiness Program is part of Google’s recent […]

Remember that big community college enrollment boom many predicted for this fall? Reported by Education Dive, it didn’t happen. In fact, community college enrollment fell 7.5% year-over-year, the biggest decrease out of any institution type. The early prediction was based on the fact that, if students weren’t going to be able to have a “traditional” […]

Is COVID increasing the popularity of college consortiums? Reported by Education Dive, with colleges having been forced to migrate so quickly to online instruction, many colleges found consortium partnerships to be their best route. More than 70 institutions have joined the Council of Independent Colleges’ Online Course Sharing Consortium since the pandemic began. For many […]

The limitations of COVID contact tracing on college campuses are becoming more apparent. Reported by Inside Higher Ed, at many campuses, students are not getting notified if their classmate tests positive for COVID. Specifically, because if the classroom is set up for social distancing, the chance of spread becomes theoretically low. The takeaway? There is […]

What spring break? Reported by Education Dive, in order to limit the amount of student travel to and from campus, especially across state lines, many institutions are scrapping spring break, and instead plan on bringing students back to campus a week later for the spring term than usual. The takeaway? The correlation of college towns […]

College tuition just experienced its largest month-over-month decline since 1978. Reported by Education Dive, the Consumer Price Index for college tuition and fees declined 0.7% from July to August due to some institutions reducing fall tuition prices in order to stay competitive and attractive during a pandemic to students and families skeptical of the same […]

Is the financial reality of fall affecting our spring campus decisions? Reported by Education Dive, some colleges have already begun to announce their spring plans, including the University of Connecticut and Pennsylvania State University, which are leaning heavily toward online and hybrid instruction. But with many institutions having much rougher fall enrollments and revenue, how […]

How many of our students actually come to our institutions to “watch” sports? Reported by EdSurge, while many have written about the potential revenue effects of campus sports cancellations and the enrollment risk of the athletes themselves, did we perhaps underestimate how important the campus sports culture is for our other students who choose to […]

If 2-year colleges are truly a competitive threat, why don’t 4-year institutions build their own? Reported by Education Dive, The John Dee Bright College will begin offering associate degrees in the fall of 2021 with an annual tuition of $18,500, less than half the tuition price at Drake University itself. The takeaway? While this 2-year […]

How has COVID affected faculty tensions with university administration across higher ed? Reported by Education Dive, strikes and “sickouts” at University of Michigan and University of Iowa highlight the exacerbation of existing faculty-admin tensions on our campuses, with many administrations pushing for on-campus in-person instruction, and many faculty fighting for more flexibility due to the […]

Rapid COVID testing alone isn’t good enough for our college campuses. Reported by Education Dive, while The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign had been hailed for its aggressive testing strategy to prevent the spread of coronavirus, in its first week back, the campus saw 700 new cases. The takeaway? Even twice-a-week mandated testing alone, which […]

Which institutions are at the most revenue risk this fall? Reported by Education Dive, it’s the institutions most revenue-dependent on auxiliary income outside tuition that are the most at risk this fall. For instance, Wheaton College in Massachusetts depends on auxiliary income such as housing, dining, and athletics for 30% of its operating income, compared […]

Should colleges cancel classes on election day? Unlike many countries, the United States does not offer Election Day as a national holiday. And therefore, it can be difficult for many working adults to get to the voting booth while balancing work, family, and education. Reported by The Washington Post, students at many institutions, including American […]

U.S. News & World Report has updated their college rankings methodology. And after doing so, there are absolutely no changes in the top three positions year-over-year. Reported by Inside Higher Ed, these methodology changes include a reduction in the weighting of SAT and ACT scores (from 10% to 7%), a reduction in the weighting of […]

What if every single college didn’t try to do every single thing on their own? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, Amherst, Bowdoin, Carleton, Pomona, Swarthmore, and Williams Colleges are teaming up for 1-stop admission events, offering joint virtual events, speaking about the benefits of liberal arts colleges to students, parents, and counselors. The takeaway? While […]

Will test-optional admissions continue next year as well? Reported by Education Dive, the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) has asked that public institutions not require entrance exam scores for the 2021-22 academic year. The takeaway? How might this affect the broader test prep industry? If the ACT and SAT aren’t the tricks to […]

Will the Black Lives Matter movement affect curriculum on campus this fall? Reported by Education Dive, the University of Pittsburgh is requiring first-year students to complete a course on anti-black racism. This one-credit course is designed to educate students about the Black experience in America. The takeaway? This course mandate is partially a response to […]

Will more students finally find community colleges this fall? Reported by EdSurge, community college has long felt like the hyper-rational economic choice. And yet, despite their affordability, year after year, millions of students would go on to choose a private college counterpart instead. But this fall, many of the reasons for choosing the private experience […]

What if we let our smart phones do our contact tracing for us? Reported by Education Dive, a test pilot at the University of Alabama is utilizing the GuideSafe app, developed using Apple and Google tools, to let students know if they’ve been exposed to someone who’s contacted the virus, based on whether or not […]

If you stay enrolled this year, we’ll make your make-up term free, if you need it. Reported by Education Dive, some institutions, such as Pacific Lutheran University and St. Norbert College, are choosing to offer an extra term or year after the student’s expected graduation date for free if they stay enrolled this year. The […]

To prevent campus closures from COVID, would colleges need to test students every other day? Reported by Education Dive, a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests such, and that after modeling thousands of scenarios with an institution of 5,000 students, the incredibly high bar of every other day testing with […]

Are across the board budget cuts coming for higher ed? Reported by Education Dive, a new survey from the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) reveals that more university presidents expect to have to implement across-the-board budget and benefit cuts than they did back in March at the beginning of COVID, including a full […]

Is now the time to reevaluate how we evaluate? Reported by EdSurge, our faculty were fairly forgiving this spring when it came to grading, knowing that everyone was getting used to a very new normal. But with increasing concerns about increasing plagiarism and the ability to cheat online, some institutions are experimenting with ungrading initiatives. […]

How can we navigate the student privacy issues involved in contact tracing? Reported by EdSurge, when a student is identified as testing positive for COVID-19, re-tracing their steps on campus can be a fairly easy digital process. A college could see when the student swiped their keycard to enter a building, or when a student’s […]

Is our faculty’s role as curriculum creator or curator? Reported by EdSurge, we may have made the challenge of spinning up new online classes this year harder than we needed it to be. Because many of our faculty hold a belief that their course needs to be all theirs. But with thousands of faculty teaching […]

Should FAFSA completion be mandatory? Reported by Education Dive, Louisiana and Texas have moved toward policies requiring high school seniors to either complete or formally decline the FAFSA as part of the college admissions process, in hopes of ensuring more low-income students will qualify for Pell Grants and unlock their college affordability pathway. The takeaway? […]

What are the incentives to lie about student COVID symptoms? Reported by Forbes, 10 members of the Colorado State University football team  alleged their coaches asked them not to report coronavirus symptoms due to the potentially negative team ramifications of having to quarantine. The takeaway? The incentives for lying about symptoms in the athletic arena […]

As students cross state lines from across the nation to fill up their college town, what are they bringing with them? Reported by The New York Times, The University of Iowa, facing a $75 million budget shortfall due to the pandemic, recently welcomed students back. In Iowa City, with 75,000 residents, more than 26,000 are […]

How can institutions enforce social distancing? Reported by BuzzFeed News, Northeastern University is doing so through incredibly tough penalties for non-compliance, and has suspended 11 first-year students for the remainder of the semester after they were found together, a breach of the institution’s coronavirus policies. These students will not be eligible for a refund on […]

How do we welcome new students coming from travel-banned states? Reported by Education Dive, with many states having quarantine orders for out-of-state visitors, how can our campuses welcome back our traveling students this fall? For instance, many states not only recommend but mandate quarantine for out-of-state visitors upon arrival. That means that your students may […]

Can we learn off other institutions’ hybrid-learning curves? Reported by Education Dive, as we seek to figure out technology solves for this next chapter and challenge of online learning across higher education, let’s make sure we understand what others have built and tested already. For example, Harvard University’s heavy-investment hybrid learning experiment includes many cameras […]

Will the design future of the college campus be heavily focused on HVAC systems? Reported by Education Dive, the trend in design planning for the college campus over the last 10 years has focused on conversations about “maker spaces”, and co-learning environments where students can study, learn, and work with their peers and instructors. But […]

Will this fall’s virtual learning be better than our student’s spring experience? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, this will often depend on what the student’s institution was focused on this summer. Many institutions spent the last few months figuring out how to make in-person learning work by any means possible, even if that meant a […]

With so many of our students learning online this fall, do we need to finally do a better job solving for online cheating? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, more and more institutions are ramping up their proctoring technology along with their broader moves to online learning. But is technology our only answer, or can we […]

Should we be encouraging our 4-year students to enroll in community college, too? Reported by Education Dive, a new study from Community College Research Center has found that students who take as many as 10 credits at a two-year institution while enrolled in a 4-year program increase their chances to graduate on time and earn […]

Google is making their next attempt at certificate-first education. Reported by Inc, Google Career Certificates are 6-month skill programs Google themselves claim will count equivalent to a 4-year degree requirement for new employees they’re hiring, including project manager, data analyst, and UX designer. The takeaway? Google’s efforts echo a broader trend of helping students increase […]

Will the algorithms that replace admissions tests prove to be any less biased? Reported by EdSurge, many institutions have dug into their data over the last five years to learn that admissions tests like SAT and ACT aren’t reliable predictors of a student’s success at their institution, and are moving toward test-optional admissions policies. And […]

What is higher ed’s liability if our students and faculty get COVID? Reported by Education Dive, more and more colleges are looking to their states for liability shields offered to some hospitals and other businesses, both to prevent legislation from students looking for refunds if they close campus, and also from students looking for liability […]

Are blended classes the resiliency answer? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, higher ed has done a formidable job immediately translating in-person courses into online experiences. But if higher ed’s delivery mode needs to be more resilient moving forward than our physical campuses have been, are blended courses the solution? Where students have the opportunity to […]

Just kidding, we’re coming back online. Reported by Inside Higher Ed, hundreds of colleges with optimistic intentions of coming back with in-person instruction options to start the fall semester have recently reversed course and announced that fall will begin with online-only instruction. The takeaway? Often citing “new scientific evidence”, many of these institutions were likely […]

Are tuition cuts higher ed’s only path to a financially healthy fall? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, many universities are starting to offer significant tuition discounts for fall. And while many are hesitant to label these as “online” discounts out of concern for valuing their online offerings less so than their in-person offerings, they are […]

College sports are canceled this fall. Reported by NPR, the Big Ten and Pac-12 have both announced that their fall sports schedule have been canceled for the remainder of the academic year. Originally, colleges were hopeful they could limit COVID risk by playing all games in-conference, but safety concerns and flare-ups nationwide have proven too […]

Students are looking for financial aid answers during an incredibly difficult economic time. Reported by Education Dive, a recent survey from Ithaka S+R indicated that roughly 50% of the 15,000 students surveyed were looking for more communication from their financial aid offices. Because many students are concerned about both their aid and academic standing. They’re […]

Just a friendly and terrible reminder that higher ed was already struggling before the pandemic. Reported by Education Dive, a lack of governmental funding, enrollment pressure, affordability concern and a growing volume of student mental health issues was already creating incredible difficulty before a global pandemic came in to add chaos to an existing crisis. […]

We have another setback study for those waiting for behavioral economics interventions to improve higher ed’s online completion rates. Reported by EdSurge, researchers from MIT just completed what may be the largest research study regarding behavioral nudges and their impact on online student success, which included nearly 250,000 students. But while faculty interventions led to […]

Reported by Inside Higher Ed, Siena College did a test run of 3 socially distanced fall learning options for us, including a face-to-face collaborative classroom, a lecture course, and an outdoor seated collaborative class – all of which seated students 6 feet apart with some students attending via ZOOM as well. The primary learnings? Physically […]

Reported by Forbes, 20% of Harvard’s incoming class have chosen to defer their enrollment and forgo their undergraduate education option this year. The takeaway? Forgo for what is still not super clear. But with many thinking that the elite institutions would be relatively spared from enrollment issues this fall, if Harvard’s having enrollment issues, the […]

If it’s our algorithms telling us that standardized tests aren’t helpful predictors for college success, should we let the algorithms themselves replace our requirements? Reported by EdSurge, with so many colleges going test-optional after digging into their data, the question is whether the data is good enough now to create the requirements for us? The […]

Let’s say we get students to come back online this fall. Are we heading for a student retention crisis shortly after? Reported by EdSurge, higher ed’s online student retention rate is historically between 5 and 35% lower than our in-person retention rates. It’s a higher barrier format to keep students engaged with, even when you […]

For those fighting for a return to in-person learning as normal, we may not be prepared for what we’re actually wishing for. Reported by Inside Higher Ed, for those institutions who do open their traditional doors this fall, the isolation of the new in-person experience may be overwhelming. Largely empty classrooms with students safely separated […]

Is active learning inherently at odds with social distancing? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, a reversion to physically distanced classrooms may cause some faculty to revert back to the traditional lecture who may have been experimenting with active learning experiences. The takeaway? Will a physically distanced in-person classroom divided by plexiglass actually be harder to […]

85% of the top 100 liberal arts institutions are test-optional this year. Reported by Inside Higher Ed, COVID has greatly accelerated the trend toward test-optional admissions policies, specifically because COVID prevented so many test takers from completing the ACT and SAT this spring. So much so that 85 of the top 100 liberal arts schools […]

Are the ACT and SAT going away or being replaced? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, the trend toward test-optional admissions continues and is growing due to COVID-19 preventing many of the spring tests from being able to take place this year. Some institutions have seen no data correlation between success on these tests and success […]

Are higher ed’s trust banks empty? Reported by EdSurge, the grace period our students and their families gave us may be running out. It is impossible to know the future. And yet, announcing plans and reversing course just weeks later rightfully strikes our students as a trust loss for us. The takeaway? How can we […]

What will college fundraising look like this year? Reported by Education Dive, with a new EAB survey that shows college advancement officials predicting a 10% or drop in philanthropic revenue this year, what will those donor relationships look like? We’re asking alumni to no longer invest into the identical experience they had, but making sure […]

Are the colleges calling fall for online-only simply the ones who can? Reported by Education Dive, the ivy league and elite schools making the early decisions for an online-only fall may have the confidence that their students will accept the decision, and be able to learn in that online environment. Whereas, some institutions more dependent […]

Is being smart enough to get into college as good as going? Reported by Education Dive, this is a common misconception – that those who attend college earn more than those who don’t because they have the intellectual advantage that enabled them to get in. But a new paper from the National Bureau of Economic […]

This fall’s international enrollment drop could cost higher ed $3B. Reported by Education Dive, a forecasting survey of 346 institutions from NAFSA suggests an estimated three billion dollar loss in international enrollment revenue this fall from coronavirus issues, travel restrictions, and exclusionary federal policies. The takeaway? Already in a recession, a $3 billion international enrollment […]

Our brand-new online faculty need better online training. Reported by EdSurge, helping our faculty dig into the last three decades of online teaching practice research may prove invaluable to creating better online-first pedagogical habits. The takeaway? There are courses, webinars, blogs, and research on best-practice online instruction. Even our own courses themselves, to give our […]

So many studies have focused on our students’ perception to our emergency remote teaching this spring. But how has spring affected our faculty’s view of online learning? Reported by Education Dive, 40% of surveyed instructors view online instruction “not so highly” or “not at all highly”, with only 22% viewing online instruction “very or extremely […]

Will the COVID recession usher in new progressive financial aid policies? Reported by Education Dive, the mission of making college affordable for those who need it the most is more critical than ever. So how can we look to recent test pilots for inspiration and direction? Like University of Michigan’s recent HAIL Scholarship study, which […]

A reality check is hitting higher ed’s once optimistic fall plans. Reported by Education Dive, with confirmed coronavirus infections surging in the last few weeks, several colleges have publicly reversed their original plans to re-open campus this fall, including the University of Southern California and Loyola University Chicago. The takeaway? The benefits of making a […]

Do our students need the humanities now more than ever? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, Coursera’s biggest growth in courses this year came from a 780% increase in the humanities, including the most popular overall course on the platform being The Science of Well Being. The takeaway? Perhaps we’re so focused on making sure students […]

What online accessibility challenges do colleges still need to decode before fall? Reported by EdSurge, the two biggest challenges making sure students could transition to online learning this past spring were physical accessibility (making sure students had computers), and connection accessibility (making sure students had internet). That latter one is often the trickier challenge that […]

Will we learn anything from this asterisk year for our rising freshman? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, it was a year of a whole lot of firsts, and a whole lot of no’s for many. No SAT. No ACT. No college visits. No counselor visits. But will it be hard to learn all too much […]

Are the 20% enrollment drop fears behind us? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, regional public university enrollment projections have leveled out. For instance, the University of Florida is only down 1% in paid deposits same time last year. While this doesn’t guarantee that there won’t be a surge of pull-outs right before the fall term […]

International students must attend on-campus or leave the country? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, Harvard and MIT have sued in federal court to block a new federal policy, prohibiting international students in the U.S. from enrolling exclusively in online courses. The problem? Harvard and MIT aren’t offering on-campus courses this fall. So what happens to […]

Campus visits are returning, via car ride. Reported by Inside Higher Ed, the University of Southern Indiana has launched a safe way to bring back their campus visits – offering car tours of campus, led by an admissions staffer in their own car. These 45-minute tours will take up to 5 cars, connected via ZOOM […]

Do colleges have a new student pool in their backyard? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, with so many students now quarantined with their parents, will a local commutable college option feel like the safe choice come fall? California State University, Fresno is offering a “local” enrollment program this fall specific to students from the neighboring […]

Where’s the adult student recession boom? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, while economic recessions historically point adults back to college to up-skill, up-credential, and find that new career path, a report from Eduventures shows that we haven’t necessarily seen those early indicators we might, and that adult students may be losing confidence that a new […]

Are brand new enrollments our biggest melt risk? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, a Carnegie Dartlet survey shows that 33% of high school students are likely to defer or cancel an admission offer rather than attend an online-only college this fall. Hence perhaps the pressure many institutions feel to figure out some sort of on-campus […]

Do our counselors need to get to students earlier in the process? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, a new study published in Education Next shows that high school guidance counselors one standard deviation more effective than the median graduate students 1.7% more likely to attend a four-year college, 1.4% more likely to persist in college […]

In an online-only world, does the cheapest college win? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, Park University is placing that bet with a big new marketing promotion advertising their institution as a gap year destination where students can continue their online studies, for a flat $9,000 tuition rate. And then of course, they can transfer right […]

What college will crack the online community challenge first? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, with so many institutions focused on upgrading their online instruction experience, who’s focusing on solving the community issue? Because while we want to make our online experience as wonderful as possible, perhaps our community was the experience. More so than our […]

Do colleges have enough financial reserves for creative tuition policies this fall? Reported by EdSurge, while institutions are doing everything they can to retain the students who were originally planning on fall, they’re also thinking about other incentives they’ll likely need to offer to make their class. Tuition freezes and discounts? Financial aid increases? One […]

Is forecasting for fall out the window altogether? Reported by Education Dive, when we look at past year’s enrollment funnels to forecast, we must remember how unlike last year this year is. That past results were never a guarantee of future performance, but oh how much even less today. The takeaway? Even deposits are going […]

Do we deserve our students’ confidence? Reported by EdSurge, calling your college’s general number right now may show off our deep and very dysfunctional communication best practices  – and worst of all, right on the very front lines where students see them the clearest. Many university phone lines are going straight to voicemail. And students […]

Will a COVID gap year end up being an all too common note on student’s resumes and transcripts moving forward? And if so, how can students make the most of their gap story? Through internship opportunities? Service work? Creative exploration? Getting some Gen Eds out of the way? The takeaway? For those individuals wanting to […]

Is our brand language inherently COVID un-friendly? Small class sizes. Intimate community. The poster language for our brands may also be the scariest sounding for someone looking to safely return to class this fall. A hotbed of intellectual community is also sadly, a potential hotbed for viral spread. The takeaway? In this new world, does […]

Are adult-serving institutions being hit the hardest right now? Reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education, federal coronavirus relief aid was distributed based on full-time equivalent (FTE) students instead of total student head count. That means that Amarillo College, serving 10,000 undergraduate students in the Texas panhandle received the same relief dollars as Brown University, […]

What have the hardest courses to teach online been? Reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education, many faculty have struggled with recreating the intimacy of the small discussion-based seminar online. The first instinct may be to try and recreate this intimacy through live ZOOM classes. But many pedagogical experts believe that asynchronous models may be […]

Colleges want to re-open in fall. But will students come back? Reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education, as of late June, a whopping 65% of colleges are optimistically planning for in-person learning come fall. But will students show up if they do? Whether for health concerns, experience concerns, or value concerns, students may be […]

How can we deal with our students’ summer learning loss? Reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education, despite our best efforts, many of our students may not have received the full education experience of our traditional courses this spring. And our rising freshman may have had a difficult last semester as well. So, are they […]

As we build out our online learning capacity, should we be building out our online mental healthcare offerings as well? Reported by Education Dive, our students have undergone significant trauma in these past few months. Prior to the pandemic, our mental health departments were likely overwhelmed and underfunded. How much worse today? And what can […]

What a challenge our new graduates and career services departments have in the time of coronavirus. Reported by Education Dive, our career services departments are trying to help our new graduates land a new job during all-time high unemployment rates. But a lot of departments are getting creative. First accepting that this is a terribly […]

International student enrollment has already been declining. Will coronavirus kill it? Reported by Education Dive, new international student enrollment declined 10% between fall of 2015 and 2018, partially due to un-friendly immigration policies. Today, international enrollment makes up a little more than 5% of total higher ed enrollment, and a much higher revenue source given […]

Live online or on-demand learning? Reported by EdSurge, many teachers are “hedging” with the current advice of education experts. That students learn best differently, so how can we serve both through compromise? And therefore we’re often left with a weekly live online gathering we hope works for most parties, and the remainder done throughout the […]

What does the future of campus policing look like? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, with a nation in outrage over police brutality and anti-black racism, the focus on institutional relationships with campus and non-campus police is already coming into view, with protest calls for defunding and disbanding campus police departments altogether. With Minneapolis at the […]

Will COVID-19 provide a boon to post-traditional student institutions? Reported by Education Dive, the colleges most prepared for this coronavirus reality have been the ones catering to the remote online learner the longest. Many institutions with the largest post-traditional student focus, with an avg. student age in their 30s, may very well find themselves top […]

MOOCs, take two? Reported by EdSurge, will the pandemic provide room for another MOOC moment? Could on-campus students who avoided online courses turn to MOOCs over their first-choice institution in the interim for the cost savings alone? Could incoming freshman who may have preferred a “gap” year, but with nowhere to travel to safe just […]

Will states be able to afford their generous “free tuition” plans any longer? Reported by Education Dive, while free tuition policies have been gaining both popularity and policy across the country over the last several years, will states be able to afford them now? Coronavirus’ impact on tax revenues and therefore, state budgets, will likely […]

Should higher ed move to a subscription-based model? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, the subscription-based model provides interesting win-win scenarios. A potentially steadier and more predictable cash flow forecasting for the institution. An incentive for the student to finish their credential quicker. Plus, an easier post-graduation option to make continuing education an expected next step […]

What if a bunch of our incoming freshman ask for a deferred decision? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, with many incoming freshman grieving their potentially lost first-year college experience, they are also considering their cost options. “Is it cheaper to go to a community college and get some online Gen Eds, or will my transfer […]

How should we evaluate our online teachers this spring? Reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education, with many faculty concerned they may be harshly critiqued for their well-intentioned and unplanned pedagogical scramble this spring, what are the different ways institutions should be thinking about performance assessment? In the article, Jody Greene suggests evaluating professors on […]

How do state affirmative action decisions influence higher ed enrollment? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, a new study published in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis shows the long term enrollment impacts of 19 public universities in states that banned affirmative action. The results? The underrepresentation gap between their share of underrepresented students compared to the […]

What are rising high school seniors putting on their college applications? Reported by Inside Higher Ed, many of the highlight reel moments were canceled. The SAT. The math competition. The debate team finals. And these same students are nervous about having blanks on what prior may have been an impressive track record of success. So […]

Coronavirus isn’t in the faculty-staff handbook. And the problem is, many higher ed leaders require the handbook. These peacetime leaders are uniquely great at operating in the normal. The problem is – this is war. A whole lot of really critical decisions have needed to have been made quickly. A whole lot more to come. […]

Forget fall. Higher ed may lose 10% of our annual revenue through the loss of summer programs alone. Reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education, summer athletic, academic, international, theater, musical, travel and co-curricular programs can account for up to 10% of a college’s annual income. The takeaway? Even while waiting to see how much […]

What will students end up doing this fall? Reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education, back in March, 1 in 6 students claimed COVID had changed their college path. How much more so in the next several months? Will community colleges with solid online experiences see an increase in enrollment? Will gap year programs, especially […]

Will ACT and SAT suffer from the coronavirus? Reported by Marketplace, the University of California’s Board of Regents voted to drop the SAT and ACT as part of the admission process across their nine campuses, which currently enroll more than 225,000 students. With this season’s ACT and SAT testing dates having been canceled, and more […]

Is higher ed too big to fail? Reported by Education Dive, dozens of educational organizations, consortiums and policy groups are pushing for broader higher education funding to ensure our institutions remain viable post COVID-19. With 0% interest rates and suspended payments on student loans already pushed through, will there be a broader set of funds […]

Does higher ed have a broader responsibility to credential the existing labor market? Reported by Education Dive, 63 million workers without a bachelor’s degree have the skills to earn at least $7 an hour more than what they’re current making. What’s separating them? The credential. The takeaway? Can higher ed play a role here? Many […]

Is now AI’s time to shine? Reported by Education Dive, with institutions feverishly trying to scramble and put together high-quality online education plans to save their enrollment if the COVID-19 pandemic keeps campuses closed come fall, is now the opportunity for AI to play hero? Through chatbots that handle instantaneous customer service? Through recruitment pool […]

Some institutions are already starting to call online-only for fall, too. Reported by Education Dive, California State University, the largest public system in the U.S., has announced the decision to their nearly 500,000 students that most of their classes would be virtual this fall. The takeaway? Will Cal State’s lead make it easier for other […]