Tag: Higher

Now that we text each other approximately 7,000 times a day, and we’re going forward as friends in a relationship of equals, we’ve decided to use our initials for this column. Gordon’s full name is Ebenezer or something that starts with an E. Rachel was born without a middle name and in college, among the preppies, decided to give herself an S.

RST: That good with you?

EGG: Do I have a choice? I would have preferred Your Highness but highly unlikely that would fly.

RST: That’s what my phone calls me. I like thinking of you as an egg. Maybe gain a whole bunch of pounds around your middle and then I’ll crack you.

EGG: That is cruel. You have no respect for older people.

RST: Whatever, geezer. Within minutes of our first column’s publication, I heard from folks telling me how I should attack you.

EGG: Rachel, one of the agreements we have is that this is not an effort to say what others wish to hear. This is us unfiltered—

RST: —um, I am always unfiltered. It’s why you wanted to work for me, since you are always decorous and stuffy.

EGG: —and the reason we decided to do this together is because we can ask each other the tough questions and not let each other resort to pablum. Truthfully, it is a bit frightening for me after 45 years of people holding their breath about what I will say, but you insist that I be honest and say the things out loud that I mutter under my breath.

RST: Well, we promised our readers we were going to get into it, go there, have it out. We already have a list of meaty topics to cover, and we’re both excited and energized by this project. We even started working on a column called “Majors Are Dumb.”

EGG: Point of order: It is not so much that majors are dumb, rather it is because the structure that requires majors is antiquated. Universities are structured to put both faculty and students into a system that is hierarchical and siloed. Yes, students need to learn and have deep understanding about topics but not be forced to learn more about this and less about that. Only when we get rid of departments and colleges and organize around centers, institutes and working groups can true creativity happen and curiosity be stoked.

RST: Can’t wait to get into that. But first, I want to ask about some of the things I’ve learned in the past three years talking confidentially to presidents for The Sandbox. They all say that everyone wants to tell them how to do their job. What do people like me fail to understand about the presidency?

EGG: Everyone “knew” how to run the university better than I did. I always felt that if people who were second-guessing me and had the same amount of information that I had, they would make the same decisions. For example, at WVU when we were looking at the need to restructure, we had a fact-based approach. We discovered we had 28 faculty in World Languages teaching 21 majors. What the hell! That was a better student-faculty ratio than the Department of Surgery. Yet when we made the decision to eliminate the department, I was accused of being an absolute heretic. We continued to teach languages based on student demand. I know that asking the students to vote with their feet is a strange concept, but it is the reality.

RST: What if there is a sudden and intense demand from students to learn Klingon? Would you set up a department to teach that? Don’t tastes and trends change? I mean, only a few years ago, students were being advised to major in computer science. Oops. I meant for us to have this conversation later.

EGG: Not a department of Klingon, but I would respond by further reducing language programs where there is no demand and hiring Professor Spock and several others if the demand persisted.

RST: Cultural appropriation much? Dr. Spock is Vulcan, Gordon (you ignorant slut!). Squirrel! We are both easily distracted, which is partly why it’s a hoot to collaborate with you.

EGG: I am having so much fun, despite your unfiltered mouth. I will take your slings and arrows with grace … and get back at you.

RST: Getting back to it, every president I talk to—and, to be clear, my circle is large but may not be representative, because everything in The Sandbox is anonymous and I do nothing to promote them or feed their egos—says that no one understands the job until their butt is in the chair. You got into that seat seven different times. Even when you were returning, did you still have a steep learning curve?

EGG: Rachel, there is no playbook for the presidency. Each place is different, with their own values and culture. And when I returned to OSU and WVU, I had to totally reinvent myself and relearn the institutions because they had changed. If I had tried the old playbook for either place, it would have been a disaster.

RST: Because you can’t step into the same river twice, though some colleges and universities are more like scum-covered ponds. An old peer of yours asked me this fall if I thought the presidency had changed in the last five years. Nope, I said. I think it’s changed in the past two. Now when former presidents spout off and tell those still in the job what they should be doing, it does damage, and I’m not going to allow you to do that, Gordon, so don’t get any ideas. The only thing worse is when those who haven’t spent meaningful time on a campus since they were students tell presidents how to do their jobs and treat higher ed as if it’s monolithic. What do you make of all these calls for presidents to stand up, fight back, make statements?

EGG: They are fools. Some of those people would have their asses fired in two minutes if they were at a public university in a red state and did what people are calling for. You learn how to dance with the partner that brought you.

RST: You mean boards. You’ve had public and private university boards, and if my sources are right, you make tons of coin serving on corporate boards (can you get me one of those cushy jobs?). What do people not understand about university boards?

EGG: University boards are the challenge of the moment. They are often appointed because of political connections or have been substantial donors to the governor or the university. And sometimes they are even elected. I had many wonderful board members who wanted to learn and support the university, but when you get a rogue board member or a cabal, it makes the life of the president miserable and you end up fighting a two-front war—the board and/or the faculty or legislature—and so you slink off into obscurity. Truthfully, tender love and care of the board is a president’s first duty and ultimate lifeline.

RST: I don’t know which is Scylla and which is Charybdis, but only one of them has real power. Lots of presidents get hired by boards who want them to do stuff, but when they fire the football coach or make some dumbass crack about the Little Sisters of the Poor, they don’t support them. And they are accountable to no one. So how do you solve this problem?

EGG: As a president you do your homework. So many people accept a job without doing due diligence. I am a poster boy for that with my decision to go to Brown. You also need to get a clear understanding of the ground rules. Although I hate this, I do think a president needs to be represented by a good lawyer before accepting a job. Ambiguity is the enemy of a successful presidency. But, in the end, so many circumstances can derail a presidency which are beyond your control. When it is time to quit, exit with grace.

RST: Not always easy. I wish I could remind faculty colleagues that if we vote no confidence in a president (misguidedly thinking that will have any effect other than souring a relationship that needs to work), the next guy the board brings in is likely to be a lot worse.

EGG: I just had a great conversation with a distinguished president who has presided over both a big public and big private institution. We decided we are going to form a group of presidents called FNC (Faculty No Confidence) members. The popular idea of the moment for faculty to express their concerns is by votes of no confidence, but confident leaders view these often as marks of greatness. And they should if they are doing the right things. If they are being stupid, then they deserve such a vote and [to be] returned to their first love: teaching.

RST: Which would be a rude awakening, because even though being a tenured faculty member is the most privileged position in the country, the students of today are a horse of another color, and not easy to corral.

EGG: The cultural gap between the Millennials and the Z generation is huge. We tend to teach to the last generation instead of to the present, and that is one of the many reasons that higher education has lost so much trust. Meet the students where they are and not where we want them to be … back to the old problem of majors, which is a silly notion for so many present students.

RST: You are famous for sending handwritten notes to journalists (for the record, since I am not a journalist, I have never received one). What does the media get wrong about the presidency and/or higher ed?

EGG: Oh my. The press. I feel like I have had almost a daily colonoscopy from the press. With a few exceptions (and they know who they are), the press has little understanding of universities or the presidency. They come at it from a very progressive lens and listen to the voices who confirm what they want to hear. The old adage of “if it bleeds it leads” is accurate. If you can make the university president bleed, you are “brave”—and most often inaccurate, if not dishonest.

RST: When I first started The Sandbox, I had a former president of a big university who wanted to write a piece called “Why We Can’t All Be Gordon Gee.” When you first reached out to me, I told you that and said I had the sense that at times even you couldn’t be who we thought Gordon Gee was. You started your career working for Chief Justice Warren Burger, and now, for the first time in 45 years, finally, you have another boss who can teach you: me. Now let’s get to work on majors and departments.

EGG: Yes, ma’am.

International scholars represent a vital economic force in the United States, contributing an estimated $42.9 billion to the economy and supporting more than 355,000 jobs during the 2024–25 academic year. But navigating the U.S. immigration system as an international student or postdoctoral researcher can be a long and complex journey.

While everyone is subject to their individual situations, for many, the process begins with an F-1 student visa, which they hold as they complete a Ph.D. over five to six years. After graduation, they may choose to transition to Optional Practical Training (OPT), which provides a year of work authorization, with a two-year extension for STEM graduates. Some may then transition to a H-1B temporary work visa, which provides for three years of work authorization and is renewable for another three years.

Depending on their visa journey, after this period of potentially 10 to 15 years on a temporary visa, a scholar who decides they would like to seek permanent residency would have several pathways available to them. The EB-1A (extraordinary ability) category allows for self-petitioning without an employer. It’s often the fastest route if one meets the strict qualifications.

EB-1B is for outstanding professors or researchers and requires employer sponsorship. EB-2, another common path, is for individuals with advanced degrees such as Ph.D. holders; it often requires employment sponsorship and a labor certification (a process that certifies that the job offer will not adversely impact U.S. workers), unless one qualifies for a National Interest Waiver, which waives the job offer and labor certification requirement and allows for self-petitioning. Unfortunately, the green card timeline is also heavily influenced by one’s country of birth due to annual per-country limits.

As universities recognize the critical importance of international students and scholars to their academic communities and the broader economy, innovative programs have emerged to address the unique challenges faced by this population. Below, we highlight some commendable strategies implemented by leading universities to support international students beyond traditional academic services.

Career Development and Professional Preparedness

Universities can collaborate with private organizations like Beyond the Professoriate, which offers a PhD Career Conference addressing critical career-related topics. These career-focused initiatives are particularly valuable because they address the reality that many international students and scholars will pursue careers outside academia, yet traditional graduate programs often provide limited exposure to industry pathways.

Complementing these efforts, universities can implement career-readiness workshops tailored specifically for international scholars to address their unique professional development needs. The effectiveness of such programs lies in their practical approach to addressing real-world concerns such as navigating visa restrictions or OPT applications and securing employment that supports immigration status.

We recommend that institutions thoughtfully include entities that hire international students in their programming and create events that specifically connect employers and international scholars. Institutions should also help scholars explore job opportunities beyond the United States.

Mentorship Networks and Alumni Connections

Mentorship programs represent another cornerstone of effective international student support. Programs like the Graduate Alum Mentoring Program, Terrapins Connect, Alumni Mentoring Program and Conference Mentor Program serve as exemplary models. Successful programs take a systematic approach to matching mentors and mentees based on shared interests, career goals and often similar international backgrounds, creating authentic relationships that provide comprehensive support for scholars’ academic journeys and beyond. For international students and scholars unfamiliar with cultural norms around American professional networking, having a guide with a shared background transforms potentially overwhelming experiences into valuable opportunities for professional development.

Community Building and Recognition

Universities that successfully support international populations prioritize creating multiple touch points for community engagement and mutual support, from informal networking events to structured support groups that address specific challenges. Community engagement is critical to minimizing isolation and allows scholars to draw on support from a variety of sources. These touch points can include accessible initiatives such as Friendship Fridays, International Coffee Hour, the Global Peer-to-Peer Mentoring Program, International Student Support Circle, VISAS Cafe and International Friends Club.

Another strategy is systematically highlighting the accomplishments of international students, scholars and faculty, and staff members at the university level. Recognition programs can include features in university publications, special awards ceremonies, spotlight presentations, fellowships and social media campaigns showcasing international student achievements. These initiatives celebrate contributions, demonstrate the value of international diversity and provide positive role models while combating negative stereotypes.

Peer Support

Since they first emerged in the early 1900s, international student associations have been central to their members’ identity formation and have long enriched U.S. campuses and social life. In these challenging times, such organizations can help their members find the support they need. National organizations such the Graduate Students Association of Ghanaian Students in the USA (GRASAG-USA) or the North American Association of Indian Students (NAAIS), as well as local chapters of groups like the Indian Students Association, continue to be effective social and emotional support resources for international students.

Providing Support in Navigating Immigration Policy Changes

Given the lengthy and often uncertain nature of immigration processes, U.S. institutions play a vital role in offering both practical support and emotional reassurance to their international members. Some institutions offer free legal consultations with external immigration attorneys. Institutions may choose to provide internal immigration advice in addition to external consultations.

Institutions may also support foreign nationals by providing information through a weekly newsletter as well as offering up-to-date guidance on policies and policy changes in an easily understandable format. Institutions without these forms of support may choose to refer scholars to national organizations that collate policy analysis and resources.

Furthermore, universities can offer programs spotlighting lesser-known immigration options, such as the O-1 visa for individuals with extraordinary ability.

By providing clear information, legal support and proactive communication, institutions and organizations can alleviate much of the stress international scholars face.

The most effective approaches involve integrated systems that combine multiple strategies rather than relying on single interventions. Successful universities create comprehensive ecosystems addressing career development, mentorship, community building and recognition as interconnected elements of student success. When institutions act not just as employers or educators, but as advocates, they empower the international talent they have invested in and ensure that global knowledge continues to thrive.

The authors acknowledge Sonali Majumdar and Bénédicte Gnangnon for their valuable contributions toward this article.

A voting student position on the Iowa Board of Regents would be eliminated under a new bill advanced by the Hawkeye State’s House higher education subcommittee, The Iowa Capital Dispatch reported.

If passed and signed into law, the bill would replace the student regent with a ninth one appointed by the governor. In addition, seven new nonvoting member seats would be established: three for students, two for state senators and two for state representatives. 

The proposed legislation also details several new policies and programs the board would be required to establish and would give members of the state’s General Assembly the ability to override board and university expenditures through a joint resolution.

The policies outlined align with the key higher education priorities for Republicans in the statehouse who hold a majority. They include:

• Establishing a post-tenure review process
• Developing approval standards for new academic programs
• Barring faculty senates from “exercising any governance authority over the institution”
• Conducting biennial reviews of all general education requirements and low-enrollment academic programs
• Creating an ombudsman office that will “investigate complaints of violations of state or federal law or board policy”

Iowa’s Board of Regents serves as a centralized governing body overseeing all three of the state’s four-year institutions—the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa. Public community colleges are overseen by locally elected boards.

In response to Joshua Bay’s recently published Inside Higher Ed article, the Consortium for Catholic Higher Education in Prison, a coalition of partnerships between Catholic universities and departments of corrections in 15 states across the country, is adding its voice to those of other leaders in the field alarmed by the piece’s misleading framing: a framing that flies in the face not just of decades of established literature on the subject, but of the study (as yet unpublished and unreviewed) itself.

Since misleading titles and leads can have very real effects on people not versed in the field, it feels important to identify what exactly is misrepresentative in the article, and to invite a fuller discussion on the known and proven benefits of higher education in prison and the important questions around supervision policy and technical violations the study raises.

The data analysis therefore provides important information on the challenges of work release for students in prison education programs but not arguments against prison education programs—if anything, calling for the release of these alumni “free and clear.” That is an issue for DOC re-entry and work-release programs, not education, and should be taken as such.

The national evidence remains unequivocal: A RAND meta‑analysis still shows a 43 percent reduction in recidivism for those who participate in prison education, which remains the most comprehensive study in the field. Facilities with education programs report up to a 75 percent reduction in violence among participants, improving safety for staff, educators and incarcerated people alike. Campbell and Lee also confirm improved employment outcomes for program participants. Employment is one of the strongest predictors of long‑term desistance, so this alone is a key success indicator.

It seems likely that not just the study’s authors, but Joshua Bay and the IHE editors, are aware of all this. The title’s amendment suggests as much, and the caption beneath the article’s lead photo reads like that of an article urging greater freedoms for formerly incarcerated students: “Incarcerated individuals who enroll in college courses are less likely to be released free and clear and more likely to be assigned to work release.” These points show that the Grinnell finding is not evidence of a flawed model—it is evidence of a local anomaly shaped by supervision practices, not by the educational intervention itself.

Decades of research, Grinnell’s own admissions and the lived outcomes of our students and graduates across the country all affirm that the work of higher education in prison is effective, restorative and socially transformative. Thus, as the field draws attention to the tensions between the article’s substance and its misleading title, the study’s findings and the way those findings are framed, and as this working paper undergoes peer review and revision, we hope that fruitful conversations may grow from this around the obstacles that students face and the possibility for transformative changes to supervision policy that sets formerly incarcerated students up for failure rather than success.

The House and Senate appropriations committees have jointly proposed legislation that would generally maintain the Education Department’s funding levels, plus increase the National Institutes of Health’s budget by more than $400 million this fiscal year. It’s the latest in a trend of bipartisan congressional rebukes of President Trump’s call to slash agencies that support higher ed.

For the current fiscal year, Trump had asked Congress to cut the NIH by 40 percent and subtract $12 billion from ED’s budget. The president proposed eliminating multiple ED programs, including TRIO, GEAR UP and the Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant program, all of which help low-income students attend college. He also proposed reducing the ED Office for Civil Rights budget by over a third.

But the proposed funding package senators and representatives released this week maintains funding for all of those programs.

“We were surprised to see the level of funding for the higher education programs actually be increased, in some regards—and be maintained,” said Emmanual Guillory, senior director of government relations at the American Council on Education. “We knew that level funding would be considered a win in this political environment.”

This latest set of appropriations bills is the final batch that Congress must approve to avert another government shutdown at the end of the month. Democrats have said passing actual appropriations bills, as opposed to another continuing resolution, is key to ensuring that federal agencies spend money as Congress wants.

Joanne Padrón Carney, chief government relations officer for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, told Inside Higher Ed that the NIH budget increase is essentially “flat funding,” considering inflation. But, she said, “This appropriations package once again demonstrates congressional, bipartisan support for research and development and the importance of these investments, as well as rejecting the administration’s very dramatic cuts.”

Earlier this month, Congress largely rejected Trump’s massive proposed cuts to the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Energy Department, three significant higher ed research funders. These developments are adding up to a more encouraging 2026 funding picture for research and programs that support postsecondary students.

But Congress has just 10 days to pass this new funding package, and Trump must still sign both packages into law. A government shutdown will begin after Jan. 30 for those agencies without approved appropriations legislation.

Guillory noted that—despite the Justice Department declaring last month that minority-serving institution programs are unlawful because they “effectively [employ] a racial quota by limiting institutional eligibility to schools with a certain racial composition”—Congress still proposed funding these programs.

“Pretty much every single program that is a minority-serving institution program received an increase in funding,” he said.

The appropriators also want to send another roughly $790 million to the Institute of Education Sciences, compared to the $261 million Trump requested. Last year, his administration gutted IES, the federal government’s central education data collection and research funding agency. But, like the broader Education Department, laws passed by Congress continue to require it to exist.

Beyond the appropriations numbers, the proposed legislation to fund the NIH would also prevent the federal government from capping indirect research cost reimbursement rates for NIH grants at 15 percent, as the Trump administration has unsuccessfully tried to do. Indirect cost reimbursement rates, which individual institutions have historically negotiated with the federal government, pay for research expenses that are difficult to pin to any single project, such as lab costs and patient safety.

The appropriations committees released an explanatory statement alongside the legislation that says, “Neither NIH, nor any other department or agency, may develop or implement any policy, guidance, or rule” that would change how “negotiated indirect cost rates have been implemented and applied under NIH regulations, as those regulations were in effect during the third quarter of fiscal year 2017.”

GOP members of the House Appropriations Committee didn’t say they were bucking the president in their news release on the proposal. Instead, they said the legislation demonstrates “the will of the American people who mandated new priorities and accountability in government, including priorities to ‘Make America Healthy Again’ and ‘Make America Skilled Again.’”

“Investments are directed to where they matter most: into lifesaving biomedical research and resilient medical supply chains, classrooms and training that prepare the next generation for success, and rural hospitals and primary care to end the chronic disease epidemic,” the release said.

Democrats claimed victory for Congress.

“This latest funding package continues Congress’s forceful rejection of extreme cuts to federal programs proposed by the Trump Administration,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, in a release.

“Where the White House attempted to eliminate entire programs, we chose to increase their funding,” DeLauro said. “Where the Administration proposed slashing resources, we chose to sustain funding at current levels. Where President Trump and Budget Director Russ Vought sought broad discretion over federal spending, Congress, on a bipartisan, bicameral basis, chose to reassert its power of the purse.”

Carney says she thinks passage is “highly likely.”

“Ostensibly, what they call the ‘four corners’—the chair and ranking members from both chambers and both parties—have come to this agreement on this package,” she said. So, barring “last-minute surprises,” she said, “it should be relatively smooth sailing.”

Rep. Tom Cole, the Republican chair of the House appropriations committee, urged his fellow lawmakers to pass the legislation.

“At a time when many believed completing the FY26 process was out of reach, we’ve shown that challenges are opportunities,” Cole said in a statement. “It’s time to get it across the finish line.”

To the editor:

We write from a Big Ten prison education program, where we’ve worked for a decade to increase access to higher education for incarcerated individuals. We found the framing of the article “Prison Education May Raise Risk of Reincarceration for Technical Violations” (Jan. 12, 2026) to be misleading and have deep concerns for its potential impact on incarcerated students and prison education programming.

The article fails to acknowledge decades of evidence about the benefits of prison education. The title and framing deceptively imply that college programs increase criminal activity postrelease at a national scale. The Grinnell study—an unpublished working paper—is only informed by data collected in Iowa. Of most impact to incarcerated students, the title and introductory paragraphs mislead the reader by implying that the blame for technical violations and reincarceration should be placed on the justice-impacted individuals themselves. Buried in the article is a nuanced, accurate, structural interpretation of the data: Per Iowa-based data, incarcerated individuals who pursue college may be unfairly targeted by parole boards and other decision-making bodies in the corrections system, thus leading to a higher rate of technical violations.

The impact of the article’s misleading framing could be devastating for incarcerated college students, especially in a climate where legislators often value being “tough on crime.”

We understand the importance for journalism to tell the full story, and many of the Grinnell study’s findings may be useful for understanding programmatic challenges; however, this particular framing could lead to its own unintended consequences. The 1994 repeal of Pell funding collapsed prison education for nearly 30 years; as a result, the U.S. went from having 772 prison ed programs to eight. Blaming incarcerated individuals for a structural failure could cause colleges and universities to pull support from their programs. We’ve already seen programs (e.g., Georgia State University) collapse without institutional support, leaving incarcerated students without any access to college. This material threat is further amplified by the article’s premature conclusions about a field that has only recently—as of 2022 with the reintegration of Pell—begun to rebuild.

In a world where incarcerated students are denied their humanity on a daily basis, it is our collective societal obligation to responsibly and fairly represent information about humanizing programming. Otherwise, we risk harming students’ still emerging—and still fragile—access to higher education.

While the politician–to–college president pipeline is thriving in red states like Florida and Texas, University of Montana president Seth Bodnar aims to go the other direction with a Senate run.

Bodnar is expected to launch a bid for the U.S. Senate as an Independent and will resign from his role as president, a job he has held since 2018, to do so, The Montana Free Press reported. 

A Bodnar spokesperson confirmed the run and the resignation plans to the news outlet but said he would wait until after a formal announcement to provide more details. The move is reportedly part of a plan backed by Jon Tester, a Democrat who served in the Senate from 2007 to 2024. Tester was unseated by Republican Tim Sheehy in 2024.

The University of Montana

Tester has reportedly expressed skepticism about chances for a Democratic victory but signaled support for Bodnar in a text message, viewed by local media, in which he pointed to the UM president’s background in private business, military service and Rhodes Scholar status.

Bodnar holds degrees from the United States Military Academy and the University of Oxford. He served in Iraq as a member of the 101st Airborne Division, was a Green Beret in the U.S. Army’s First Special Forces Group, and later a lieutenant colonel in the Montana National Guard.

Bodnar taught at West Point from 2009 to 2011 before joining General Electric, where he served in a variety of corporate leadership roles before he was recruited to take the UM presidency.

A university spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment from Inside Higher Ed asking when a formal campaign announcement will be made or when Bodnar may step down.

To the editor:

We appreciate the opportunity to respond to the recent opinion essay “Degrees of Uncertainty” (Dec. 15, 2025). The author raises important questions about rising college costs, institutional incentives and the risks of oversimplifying complex financial challenges facing students and families.  We are pleased that she recognizes Loan Repayment Assistance Programs (LRAPs) help address affordability challenges and provide many benefits for students and colleges. 

However, the author questions whether students should benefit from a guarantee that their college degree will be economically valuable. 

LRAPs are, at their core, student loan insurance. It can be scary to borrow large student loans to finance an expensive college degree. There is a market failure, however, every time a student does not attend their preferred college, study their preferred major or pursue their preferred career because they are afraid of student loans. Students should be free to pursue their passions—not forced into second-best choices because of the cost of the degree or the prospect of a lower income in the future.  

Society also loses out—especially if the lower-income career a student wants to pursue is a human service profession, such as education, where they will invest in improving the lives of others. 

Most purchases come with a warranty or guarantee. Why should college be different? Colleges promise to provide value to students. We applaud those colleges and universities that stand behind that promise with a financial guarantee.

As consumers, we routinely insure our biggest risks and largest purchases. We insure our homes, cars, boats and lives—and even our pets. Why shouldn’t we insure an expensive investment in college? 

In any class, we can expect some students will earn less than their peers. It is reasonable for students to fear being among that group. An individual student cannot diversify that risk. That is the function of insurance.  

LRAPs spread the risk across many students, just as insurance does with other familiar risks. Most drivers can’t protect themselves from the chance of being in a car accident and facing large repair and medical expenses. Insurance spreads that risk, turning a small chance of a very large cost into a small premium that protects against that loss. 

LRAPs serve the same function for students—without the cost—because colleges cover the program, giving students peace of mind and the freedom to attend their preferred college and pursue their passions. 

By doing this, LRAPs are a tool that can help colleges increase enrollment and revenue. This additional revenue can be invaluable at a time when colleges face many structural challenges—from regulatory changes to the disruption of AI to declining enrollment caused by the demographic cliff. 

LRAPs provide meaningful protection to students while maintaining clear incentives to focus on completion, career preparation and postgraduation outcomes.

University leaders are thinking a lot about AI. Some institutions are purchasing site licenses, others forming task forces and others are drafting policies focused on academic honesty. Meanwhile, students are quietly bearing a cost that few are tracking: between $1,200 and $1,800 over four years in AI tool subscriptions that fragmented and unenforceable institutional policies have made necessary.

Here’s what a typical student experience looks like. Freshman fall semester: The composition professor bans ChatGPT even though the university has a site license. The biology lab recommends NotebookLM for research synthesis. The math professor encourages Wolfram|Alpha Pro Premium at $8.25 per month. Spring semester brings a different writing professor, who requires Grammarly Pro at $12 monthly, while the computer science intro professor suggests GitHub Copilot Pro for $10 monthly (though it’s worth noting here—props to GitHub Copilot—that verified students may be eligible for free access to the Pro plan). Meanwhile, the research methods professor advises students to “use AI responsibly” without defining what that means.

As students progress, the costs compound. Statistics courses need IBM SPSS Statistics with AI features or Jupyter with premium compute, such as through a Google CoLab Pro subscription ($9.99 per month). Marketing classes require Canva Pro for design projects at $15 monthly. Capstone courses recommend Claude Pro at $20 monthly, or premium versions of research tools like Consensus or Elicit running anywhere from $10 to more than $40 per month. Different courses equal different tools, and the subscription stack grows. The money matters—$1,200 to $1,800 is significant for students already stretching every dollar. But the financial burden reveals something more troubling about how policy fragmentation or policy stall is undermining educational equity and mission. The problem runs deeper than institutional inaction.

Without coordination, universities face two unsatisfying options. Option one: Buy nothing centrally. Students bear the full cost—potentially $4 million to $7 million in aggregate per year for a 15,000-student institution—creating massive equity gaps and graduates unprepared for AI-integrated careers. Option two: Attempt institutional licensing. But this means more than purchasing a single large language model. Writing disciplines might work with ChatGPT or Claude. But other disciplines might need GitHub Copilot, Canva Pro, AI-enhanced modeling platforms, Consensus, Elicit, AI features in SPSS or premium Jupyter compute. There are thousands of AI platforms out there.

A truly comprehensive strategy for a large university could exceed $2 million annually—with no guarantee of faculty adoption or pedagogical integration. So even with an investment, without consensus or agreement, students might still experience this AI tax. Some institutions have the financial capacity to invest in both comprehensive licensing and faculty development. But most universities facing enrollment pressures and constrained budgets cannot afford coordinated AI strategy at this scale. The result is policy paralysis while students continue paying out of pocket. Some institutions have tried a middle path, purchasing site licenses for tools like ChatGPT Edu or Claude for Education. But without cross-functional coordination, these investments often miss their mark.

The fundamental barrier is really a structural one. Procurement authority typically resides with the chief information officer, while pedagogical decisions belong to the provost and faculty. The information technology office selects tools based on security, scalability, cost and vendor relationships and reliability. Faculty need tools based on disciplinary fit, learning outcomes and individual professional preparation. These criteria rarely align. If an institution does purchase something, it may sit underutilized while students continue paying for what they actually need or what faculty require or prefer.

This creates the unintentional equity crisis: Two students in the same capstone course may face dramatically different access. Student A, working 20 hours weekly and Pell Grant eligible, cannot afford premium subscriptions. She uses free versions with severe limitations and usage caps—and when those caps hit midassignment, her work stalls. Student B, with family financial support, maintains premium subscriptions for every required tool with unlimited usage and priority access. Student B’s AI-enhanced work earns higher grades not because of deeper learning, but because of subscription access. Academic advantages compound over time and may continue past college and into the career.

Universities have created an unintentional AI tax here on students that exacerbates grade inflation, does not ensure learning of content and is costing students. Universities have always operated on a principle of equal access to essential learning resources. AI has become essential to academic work, yet access remains unequal.

The academic commons is breaking down. The coordination gap is structural—and fixable. Technology teams focus on infrastructure and security. Academic affairs manages curriculum and pedagogy. Student success addresses traditional access barriers. Financial aid handles emergency requests for support case by case. In practice, the CIO and provost rarely will coordinate at the operational level, where these decisions actually get made.

The employability implications compound the equity concerns. One survey found that 26 percent of hiring managers now consider AI fluency a baseline requirement, with 35 percent actively looking for AI experience on résumés. Students graduating without systematic AI literacy preparation face workforce disadvantages that mirror the educational inequities they experienced, disadvantages that may extend into career outcomes and lifetime earnings.

The real question isn’t “What should we buy?” Instead, universities need to ask themselves, “What is AI fluency and how do we know if students are getting it?” Then, “How do we make strategic decisions about what gets institutional investment—not just licenses but also faculty buy-in and development—versus what students purchase?” That requires executive-level strategic coordination that bridges IT and academic affairs, something most universities lack.

The conversations are happening in separate silos when they need to converge. Until they do, universities will continue creating hidden taxes for students while wondering why AI investments aren’t delivering promised educational transformation. Students caught in this gap might not even be aware it is happening and not have the language or platform to name it.

Higher education’s democratic mission requires equal access to essential learning tools. AI has become essential. Access remains unequal. Costs are passed to the students. The longer institutions delay action, the wider these gaps grow.

The Lane Community College Board of Education voted to approve college leaders’ plans for a budget reduction on Jan. 7, despite fierce pushback from the faculty union. The latest controversy comes amid a dramatic year for the Oregon community college, marked by long, fractious board meetings and an ongoing battle between administrators and faculty over stalled labor negotiations and course cuts.

College administrators argue the approved proposal—cutting spending by $8 million over the next three years—is a financial necessity. They say the college regularly falls short of a board requirement to maintain 10 percent of its balance in reserves. Administrators also conducted a new multiyear forecast that predicted expenses are going to grow.

The college is expected to be “in a deficit every year … if we continue on the same trends that we have been in the last two or three years,” said Kara Flath, Lane’s vice president of finance and operations. The plan also proposes using some of the freed-up money for deferred maintenance and other projects.

But faculty union leaders disagree with the administration’s view of the college’s financial present and future. Adrienne Mitchell, president of the faculty union, the Lane Community College Education Association, believes leadership’s projections are pessimistic and that a roughly 8 percent cut to the $104 million operating budget is excessive.

“We don’t believe any of those cuts are necessary,” Mitchell said. “Currently, all of our funding sources—state funding, property taxes and student tuition revenue—are up.”

The union came out with an independent report last week suggesting that the college is in a sound financial position and should invest more, not less, in faculty and the campus over all. But faculty and administrators fundamentally disagree on how much spending will rise and what tranches of money the college has at its disposal.

The union’s perspective that the college can spend less “makes the numbers look better,” Flath said. “But as finance people, we have decades of finance experience” and such cost estimates are “not fiscally viable.”

Mitchell also argued that Oregon Local Budget Law requires the board to follow a legal process that includes forming a committee of board and nonboard members, presenting the budget and hosting a public hearing, before formally adopting a budget. The union put out a legal memo on the matter in September.

But administrators say their overarching plan isn’t the final budget—it doesn’t specify where exactly cuts will be made—so it doesn’t need to go through such a process yet. They said they plan to review programs, solicit community feedback and draw up a list of recommended cuts in the spring.

Board members, initially skeptical of the plan’s lack of specificity, held multiple ad hoc budget committee meetings last week to discuss it ahead of the meeting on Wednesday, which lasted almost five hours.

Board member Zach Mulholland said at the Wednesday meeting that he still sees “red flags and concerns with regards to unspecified cuts” but concluded, “at this moment in time, this appears to be a balanced proposal.” Mulholland and other board members on the ad hoc committee recommended the board move forward with the plan, as long as it includes annual updates and regular progress reports from administrators.

“Now maybe as a college we can work together,” Flath said.

Fraught Faculty Relations

But the college is also mired in other controversies. The faculty union, which represents about 525 full- and part-time professors, has been without a contract since June as administrators and faculty clash over the details.

Discussions have soured over disagreements about workloads, class-size limits, cost-of-living adjustments, the timing of layoff notices and the college’s efforts to strike some provisions, which Mitchell says amounts to a “net divestment” of over a million dollars in spending on faculty. The administration argued some of the issues in the proposed contract aren’t directly connected to faculty benefits, including proposals to add immigration status to the college’s nondiscrimination policy and ramp up campus safety measures.

Grant Matthews, vice president of academic affairs, said significant progress has been made since the summer, but “really, we’re stuck on economics.”

“We’re trying to really have a fiscally sustainable institution, and the proposals that we’re receiving at the table are not fiscally responsible,” he said. He estimated that the current contract proposal could cost the college up to $61 million.

Professors aren’t pleased with how the process is going. In a December survey of 271 faculty members, 87 percent reported low morale, 90 percent said they didn’t trust the college’s president and 69 percent reported that they fear retaliation for expressing their views. The union has also raised concerns that faculty of color are leaving the college. On Wednesday, about 75 union members and supporters picketed outside ahead of the board meeting.

Two more bargaining sessions are planned for this month, and mediation is scheduled after.

Recent course cuts have also frayed relations between faculty and college leaders. Lane cut about 100 course sections for the winter and spring terms after introducing a new system that allows students to sign up in the fall for courses for the entire year.

Administrators said this is a typical number of course cuts for the college, on par with past years, to optimize their academic offerings, and advisers are ensuring students still get the classes they need. But Mitchell described the move as a blow to part-time faculty, who lost classes that might have filled up later in the year. The union filed an unfair labor practice complaint with the Oregon Employment Relations Board, arguing the eliminated courses should have been a part of bargaining. Mitchell also worries the cuts are a roadblock for students who need to take certain courses, noting that a popular biology class—a prerequisite for many health professions courses—has a wait list of 168 students.

Leadership Tensions

The board, meanwhile, has had its own share of drama over the past year.

The faculty union has accused administrators of encroaching on board responsibilities and criticized the board for failing to exercise its authority.

“There’s been a lot of controversy surrounding the administration essentially taking over the role of the Board of Education,” Mitchell said.

Meanwhile, in August, a third-party report concluded that Mulholland, formerly the board chair, and other board members discriminated against President Stephanie Bulger, a Black woman, on the basis of race and sex. The report described Mulholland and some other board members as displaying a dismissive or hostile attitude toward Bulger, cutting her off in conversations, and deferring questions to male staff. The report also found that Mulholland had intimidated a student. In September, the board censured the former board chair, who apologized, and the full board then came out with a joint apology.

“We are deeply sorry for the negative impact our behavior has had on you and the college community at large,” said Austin Fölnagy, the current board chair, who was also accused of adopting a dismissive tone toward the president. “President Bulger, please accept the board’s apology for treating you badly.”

Mitchell said the union is “very concerned about any type of discrimination, and we think it’s really important for everyone on the campus to feel safe.”

The college’s accreditor, the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, also deemed the college “substantially in compliance” with accreditation standards but “in need of improvement” in a notice last March. The accreditor recommended the college evaluate its internal communication and ensure decision-making processes are “inclusive of all constituents,” among other suggestions.

University of Virginia board members blasted state lawmakers as “extremist” and faculty members as “out of control” in a batch of text messages published by The Washington Post.

Richmond-based author Jeff Thomas sued the university to force the release of communications between board members and university officials from June 2023 through last month; he then released the 947 pages of messages to the newspaper.

In recent months, the Board of Visitors—stocked with GOP donors and other political figures—has defied state lawmakers, including Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger, over calls to pause a presidential search. That search concluded with an internal hire last month, though multiple critics have flagged process concerns and state lawmakers have also voiced displeasure.

The text messages show that board members reacted sharply last year when a Democrat-controlled board rejected multiple university board picks from Republican governor Glenn Youngkin. The governor lost a subsequent legal fight to seat the picks, and several boards remain hobbled.

In August text messages to Jim Donovan, one of the rejected picks, UVA board rector Rachel Sheridan called the General Assembly’s refusal to approve Youngkin’s nominees “Very disappointing. Completely unprecedented and destructive.” Sheridan added, “I hope this backfires politically and reveals them to be the extremists they are.”

Sheridan did not apologize or backtrack after the texts were released. In a statement to the Post and Inside Higher Ed, she wrote, “I respect the General Assembly’s authority on these matters but share the frustration of those four individuals that were summarily rejected without the benefit of consideration of their merit and the value these individuals have given and could have continued to give to the university community.”

Her remarks highlight tensions between the board and the General Assembly, which have spiked since President Jim Ryan resigned under pressure in June and the university signed an agreement with the Department of Justice in October to close multiple investigations into alleged civil rights violations.

In other text messages, Vice Rector Porter Wilkinson expressed frustration with the UVA Faculty Senate, which has demanded answers about whether Ryan was pushed out by the board and the DOJ agreement.

When Board of Visitors secretary Scott Ballenger texted Wilkinson in October to say the Faculty Senate was debating a resolution to demand a meeting with Sheridan and then–interim president Paul Mahoney, Wilkinson responded, “That is insane.” When he told her the Faculty Senate was weighing a resolution of no-confidence in Mahoney, Wilkinson wrote, “So embarrassing. For them.” She added in response to another text from Ballenger, “This is out of control.”

The published text messages also expose the board’s dramatic behavior behind the scenes. In a text to Sheridan, former rector Robert Hardie, a Democratic appointee who has since rotated off the board, made vague references to an “unhinged” board member threatening the university administration.

Hardie called board members Stephen P. Long and “BE” (presumably Bert Ellis) “assholes.” (Ellis was removed by Youngkin in late March for his combative style on the board.) Hardie referred to board members “BE,” Long, Douglas Wetmore and Paul Harris as “four horses asses” [sic]. Hardie also complained about a member that he did not name trying to stir controversy and a “food fight.”

The full batch of text messages can be read here.

The release of the texts—spurred by legal action—comes as UVA has been slow to release information in response to public records requests, prompting criticism from a local lawmaker and others. Citing “a significant backlog,” UVA has not yet fulfilled a public records request regarding communications with federal officials sent by Inside Higher Ed in October.

After a week of talks and a final compromise from the Education Department, an advisory committee on Friday signed off on regulations that would require all postsecondary programs to pass a single earnings test.

The new accountability metric, set to take effect in July, could eventually cut failing programs off from all federal student aid funds—an enhanced penalty that appeared key to the committee reaching consensus Friday. Before the compromise, programs that fail the earnings test would only have lost access to federal student loans. Under the proposal, college programs will have to show that their graduates earn more than a working adult with only a high school diploma.

In the course of negotiations, committee members repeatedly argued that allowing failing programs to receive the Pell Grant didn’t sufficiently protect students or taxpayer funds, and it appeared unlikely that without more significant changes, the committee would reach unanimous agreement.

But now, failing programs will also lose eligibility for the Pell Grant if their institution doesn’t pass a separate test, which measures whether failing programs account for either half of the institution’s students or federal student aid funds. If either condition is met in two consecutive years, the programs will be cut off. The timing of the two tests and consequences mean that it will take at least three years for institutions to lose all access to federal student aid. Individual programs lose access to loans after failing the earnings test in two consecutive years.

Preston Cooper, the committee member representing taxpayers and the public interest, who had opposed the department’s initial proposal, said the agency’s compromise would “protect a lot of students.”

“By some of our calculations here, this would protect around 2 percent of students and close to a billion dollars a year in Pell Grant funds,” he said.

The department unveiled this new penalty late Friday morning after what ED’s lead negotiator Dave Musser called an “extremely productive” closed-door meeting with nearly all of the committee members. The proposed regulations aren’t yet final. The department is required to release them for public comment and review that feedback before issuing a final rule.

Other committee members also praised the compromise as “reasonable’ and “common-sense.” Members representing states and accreditors said the revised earnings test and new penalties would help to ensure institutions offer credentials that boost graduates’ earnings. Some suggested that the accountability framework could better inform discussions between institutions and employers, as it sets clear standards.

“And those standards are going to influence the decisions that [employers] make, and that’s going to be a pretty large educational effort,” said Randy Stamper with the Virginia Community College System, who represented states on the committee. “But at least we have the tool to hang our hat on to make points that low-earning programs are a result of low pay, and I think that will help us.”

How Courses Will Be Measured

The department’s proposal essentially combines two accountability metrics—the Do No Harm standard that Congress passed last summer and the existing gainful-employment rule. Gainful employment only applies to certificate programs and for-profit institutions, whereas Do No Harm covers all programs except certificates.

Tamar Hoffman, the committee member representing legal aid, consumer protection and civil rights groups, was the only person to abstain from voting. (Abstaining doesn’t block consensus.)

“The reason I’m abstaining from this vote is because it was made very clear to me throughout this process that protections for students in certificate programs would be taken away altogether if I blocked consensus, and those students are just too important for me to take that risk, especially with the long history of abuse in certificate programs,” Hoffman said.

About 6 percent of all programs would fail the combined earnings test, including about 29 percent of undergraduate certificates, according to department data. Roughly 650,000 students were enrolled in a failing program as of the 2024–25 academic year, half of whom attend a for-profit institution.

“Proprietary institutions are eager to be able to demonstrate where we have programs that are of great value and have good outcomes,” said Jeff Arthur, the committee member representing the for-profit higher education sector. “We’re looking forward to having that opportunity to have a level comparison for the first time across several metrics with all other programs.”

Education Under Secretary Nicholas Kent praised the committee’s work in his closing remarks, saying they made history by adopting a standard accountability metric that will ensure the taxpayer investment in higher education is working for everyone.

“For years, we have been bogged down in ineffective measures that simply failed to capture the full picture of how all programs were actually performing,” he said. “This new framework is different. It’s about ensuring that all programs meet a baseline for financial value, a baseline that reflects the needs of students and taxpayers alike.”

What’s Next for OBBBA Regulations

Friday’s meeting ends two rounds of negotiations at the Education Department to implement Congress’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. In November, a different advisory committee reached consensus on regulations related to repayment plans, graduate student loan caps and what’s become a controversial plan to designate 11 degree programs as eligible for a higher borrowing limit. Then, in December, this advisory committee approved rules to expand the Pell Grant to short-term workforce training programs.

The department still has to take public comments and finalize those rules before July 1. Kent said the regulations for the student loan provisions should be published later this month.

Several outside policy experts doubted whether the department could get through the necessary negotiations and reach consensus on all the topics—a point that Kent addressed as he called out some of the media coverage surrounding the talks.

“And yet, here we are today,” he said. “Together, we have built something that will stand the test of time and end the regulatory whiplash. Once again, those who bet against us were wrong. They continue to severely underestimate this administration and this committee.”

Despite the economic realities of the outside world, the campus magazine survives. Or perhaps not, if other colleges and universities begin to interpret federal guidance like the University of Alabama.

Students at my own institution, Syracuse University, put out a fashion magazine, a food magazine and a Black student life magazine last semester, among others. And that’s just one semester: Magazines come and go most years based on student interests and appetites. (I do not miss a particularly provocative, though well-designed, sex magazine.) These student-run publications are a chance for young people to develop critical thinking, writing and editorial skills as they skewer icons and interrogate their world. They are also empowering. For these digital natives, there’s something especially meaningful about committing your name and your ideas to print for all the world to see. Student media helps young people make sense of a confusing present and uncertain future.

Students at the University of Alabama shared in this tradition until Dec. 1, when campus officials effectively eliminated two magazines. Nineteen Fifty-Six was founded in 2020 and named for the year the first Black student, Autherine Lucy Foster, enrolled at Alabama. The magazine’s website notes that it is a “student-run magazine focused on Black culture, Black excellence, and Black student experiences at The University of Alabama.” Alice magazine launched in 2015 as “a fashion and wellness magazine that serves the students of the University of Alabama.” Like most professional consumer fashion or wellness publications, women are the primary audience.

Though Alabama’s administration cited federal anti-DEI guidance as the impetus for its decision, The Crimson White, Alabama’s student newspaper, reported that neither magazine “barred participation based on personal characteristics like race and gender identity” and that both publications had “hired staff who were not part of their target audiences.” The same is true in industry; some of the most talented editors I’ve worked with were not the target audience of the publications they led.

In their 2021 book, Curating Culture: How Twentieth-Century Magazines Influenced America (Bloomsbury), editors and scholars Sharon Bloyd-Peshkin and Charles Whitaker observe that magazines provide “information, inspiration, empathy, and advocacy for readers with specific interests, identities, goals, and concerns.” In a 2007 article, magazine scholar David Abrahamson explains that magazines “have a special role in their readers’ lives, constructing a community or affinity group in which the readers feel they are members.” Magazines, by intention and design, are exclusive and niche. That’s why audiences love them. Today, media across all platforms follow the magazine’s lead. What is a “For You” feed if not an enticing unspooling of curated content?

At Alabama, university officials were quick to point out that they were merely cutting financial support for the magazines, not attacking free speech, as students at public institutions are protected by the First Amendment. (Never mind that the Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that public universities may charge an activity fee to fund a program that facilitates speech if the program is viewpoint neutral, meaning that funds are disbursed in way that does not privilege one perspective over another.)

Alabama has cited Attorney General Pam Bondi’s nonbinding 2025 guidance for recipients of federal funding, suggesting that because the two magazines primarily target certain groups, they are “unlawful proxies” for discrimination. Student press advocates are unconvinced by this rationale—one called it “nonsense”—but perhaps Alabama’s leaders did not want to find out whether the modest funding used to support a magazine read by women (among others) and another read by Black people (among others) would be considered unlawful “resource allocation” or “proxy discrimination.” Or maybe eliminating funding for one magazine coded as female gave adequate cover to cut a magazine explicitly targeted at another group. That Alice magazine didn’t even identify itself as a “women’s magazine” is enough to demonstrate that whom and what content is for is no longer defined by editors or the free market, but the specter of Trump’s Department of Justice.

The chilling effect ripples. Universities that fear retribution from the Trump administration may be wary not only of student-run magazines, but any publication produced with public funds, including scholarly journals. So watch out, Southern Historian. You may be next.

Nearly four months after he was terminated for reposting a news headline that quoted the late conservative commentator Charlie Kirk’s position on gun rights, Darren Michael has been reinstated as a professor of theater at Austin Peay State University, Clarksville Now reported. 

Michael returned to the classroom in late December. The university will also pay him $500,000 and reimburse therapeutic counseling services as part of the settlement.

“APSU agrees to issue a statement acknowledging regret for not following the tenure termination process in connection with the Dispute,” the settlement agreement reads in part. “The statement will be distributed via email through APSU’s reasonable communication channels to faculty, staff, and students.”

Shortly after Kirk was shot and killed at a campus event in September, Michael shared a screenshot of a 2023 Newsweek headline on his personal social media account that read, “Charlie Kirk Says Gun Deaths ‘Unfortunately’ Worth it to Keep 2nd Amendment.” His repost was picked up by conservative social media accounts, and his personally identifying information was distributed. It also caught the attention of Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who shared Michael’s post alongside his headshot and bio with the line “What do you say, @austinpeay?” Michael was terminated Sept. 12. 

Michael did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday. A spokesperson for Austin Peay State declined to comment.

Amherst College, where I teach, recently changed the designation of its senior administrators, who were formerly called “chiefs,” as in chief financial officer, to “vice presidents.” We now have 10 of them, as well as 15 other individuals who hold titles such as senior associate, associate or assistant vice president.

Not too long ago, in the time before they became chiefs, our VPs would have been called deans, directors or, in the case of our chief financial officer, treasurer. (Indeed, some retain a dean title along with their vice presidential one—the vice president of student affairs and dean of students, or the vice president and dean of admission and financial aid.) I respect and value the work that they do, regardless of their title. I know them and am aware of their dedication to the college and the well-being of its students, faculty and staff.

But, for a small, liberal arts college that has long been proud to go its own way in many things, including in its idiosyncratic administrative titles, that’s a lot of vice presidents and associate and assistant VPs.

Today, many of America’s colleges and universities are grappling with the issue of grade inflation. They are coming to terms with the fact that if everyone gets an A, as Christopher Schorr argues, “grading becomes a farce.” At the same time that grades have become inflated, another kind of inflation has affected our campuses.

I call it the “vice presidentialization” of higher education.

That trend is a sign of a shift in power from faculty to administrators, who are focused on protecting and managing their college’s brand. It is another sign of the growing administrative sector in American colleges and universities.

Titles matter.

For example, the title “dean of students” suggests a job that is student-facing, working closely with students to maximize their educational experience. The title of “vice president for student affairs” suggests something different, a role more institution-facing, dealing with policy, not people.

Mark J. Drozdowski, a commentator on higher education, put it this way more than a decade ago: “Higher ed, as the casual observer might divine, is awash in titles.” He observes that for faculty, “The longer the faculty title, the more clout it conveys … Yet among administrators, the opposite holds true: president beats vice president, which in turn beats assistant vice president, which thoroughly trounces assistant to the assistant vice president.”

“We’ve grown entitled to our titles,” Drozdowski continues. They “bring luster to our resumes and fill us with a sense of pride and purpose … Titles confer worth, or perhaps validate it. They have become a form of currency. They define our existence.”

What was true when Drozdowski wrote it is even more true today. Administrative titles may “confer worth” on the individuals who hold them, but higher ed will not prosper if administrative titles define its worth.

The multiplication of vice presidents and title inflation mark an embrace of hierarchy on the campuses where it happens. They may also signify and propel a division between those who see themselves as responsible for the fate of an institution and those who do the day-to-day work of teaching and learning.

What was once designated a “two cultures” problem to explain the divide between humanists and scientists now may describe a divide between the cadre of vice presidents and the faculty, staff and students on college campuses.

Having someone serve in the position of vice president at a college or university is not new, although the growth in the number of vice presidents at individual colleges and universities is. In fact, the role can be traced back to the late 18th century, when Princeton’s Samuel Stanhope Smith (son-in-law of the university president) became what the historian Alexander Leitch calls “the first vice president in the usual sense.” His primary duty was to step in when the president was unavailable. Yet, as Jana Nidiffer and Timothy Reese Cain note in their study of early vice presidencies, the position was not “continuously filled” at Princeton after that: After 1854, they write, “the role remained unfilled for almost thirty years and the title disappeared for more than a half-century.”

Today, having a single vice president—or having none at all—seems almost unimaginable across the landscape of higher ed. Harvard University, for example, now lists 14 people as vice presidents in addition to the 15 deans of its schools and institutes. The University of Southern California has 13 vice presidents on its senior leadership team. Yale University lists nine vice presidents, as does Ohio State University. Emory University lists eight, and Rutgers University seven.

The number of vice presidents at liberal arts colleges also varies significantly. Middlebury College has eleven. Dickinson College has nine, Kenyon College seven, Whitman College six, Goucher College six, Williams College three.

And don’t forget Amherst’s 10 VPs.

Those figures suggest that the number of vice presidents a place has is not simply a function of its size or complexity. The proliferation of vice presidents is driven, in part, by the desire of colleges and universities to make their governance structures legible to the outside world, and especially the business world, where having multiple vice presidents on the organization chart is standard operating procedure.

And once one institution of higher education adopts the title of vice president for its administrative officers, others are drawn to follow suit, wanting to ensure that their leadership structures are mutually legible. The growth of vice presidencies may also help propel career mobility. How can a mere dean compete with vice presidents for a college presidency?

More than a century ago, the distinguished economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen warned that “standards of organization, control and achievement, that have been accepted as an habitual matter of course in the conduct of business will, by force of habit, in good part reassert themselves as indispensable and conclusive in the conduct of the affairs of learning.” His response was to argue that “as seen from the point of view of the higher learning, the academic executive and all his works are anathema, and should be discontinued by the simple expedient of wiping him off the slate.”

That is not my view. However, we have a lot to learn from Veblen.

It would be a mistake for faculty and others who may be accustomed to the way things are done in banking or in other businesses to overlook the impact of the proliferation of academic executives on campus culture. It will take hard work and vigilance to make sure that the cadres of vice presidents on campuses govern modestly and that vice presidents don’t become local potentates.

To achieve this, colleges must insist that their VPs stay close to the academic mission of the places where they work. This requires that we not allow our vice presidents to accrue privileges foreign to the people they lead and not escape from the daily frustrations that faculty and staff experience working in places where emails are not answered and nothing can get done without filling out a Google form.

It may be helpful if our vice presidents leave their offices and interact with faculty and students on a regular basis. They should sit in on classes, visit labs and studios, and occasionally answer their own phones.

Ultimately, even places like Amherst may be able to live with our own vice presidentialization—so long as those who have the title don’t take it too seriously and never forget that the business of education is not a business.

Done! Finished!

One might expect to hear such exclamations from exultant college students, relieved or ready to rejoice upon polishing off their latest essay assignment. Instead, these are the words I hear with increasing frequency from fellow professors who have come to think that the out-of-class essay itself is now done. It’s an antiquated assignment, some say. An outmoded form of pedagogy. A forlorn fossil of the Writing Age, a new coinage that seems all too ready to consign writing instruction to extinction.

As a new director of my college’s faculty development office, I’m privy to ongoing conversations about the teaching of writing, many of which are marked by frustration, perplexity and pessimism. “I don’t want to read a machine’s writing,” one professor laments. “I don’t want to police student essay writing for AI use,” another asserts.

Kevin Roose, a tech writer for The New York Times, who recently visited my campus, has suggested that the take-home essay is obsolete, asking, “Why would you assign a take-home exam, or an essay on Jane Eyre, if everyone in class—except, perhaps, the most strait-laced rule followers—will use A.I. to finish it?”

Whether this situation is entirely new is arguable. For decades, we’ve had online resources that might make independent student reading unnecessary, yet we haven’t stopped assigning out-of-class reading. If I assign a rigorous novel like Charles Dickens’s Bleak House, I’ve long known that students can access an assortment of chapter summaries online—CliffsNotes, SparkNotes, LitCharts and others, all of which might make unnecessary the intellectual work of deciphering Dickens’s 19th-century sentences or wading into the deep waters of his sometimes murky prose. Maybe, as a recent New York Times piece about Harvard University students not doing their reading suggests, students aren’t doing that kind of homework, either.

Still, being able to create sentences, paragraphs, essays and research papers with a single prompt—or now, having “agentic AI” engineer an entire research process in a matter of minutes—seems different from googling the plot summary for the first chapter of Bleak House.

Maybe writing via LLMs is different because it’s not just about summarizing someone’s else’s idea; it’s about asking a machine to take the glimmer of one’s own half-hatched idea and turn it into a flawless, finished product. Somehow that process seems a little more magical, like being able to create a novel or a dissertation with a Bewitched-like twitch of the nose.

Further, the problems with out-of-class writing are different from those linked to out-of-class reading because of how embedded AI has become within the most basic writing tools—from Microsoft’s Copilot to Grammarly. With tools that blur the boundaries between the student and their “copilot,” students will increasingly have difficulty discerning what’s them and what’s the machine—to the chagrin of those who do want to develop autonomous intellectual skills. As high school senior Ashanty Rosario complained in an essay in The Atlantic about how AI is “demolishing my education,” AI tools have become “inescapable” and inescapably seductive, with shortcuts to learning becoming “normalized.”

In this world of ubiquitous AI shortcuts, how do we encourage students to take the scenic route? How do we help them see, as John Warner reminds us in More Than Words: How To Think About Writing in the Age of AI (Basic Books, 2025), that writing is an act of embodied thinking and a tool for forging human community, linking one human being to another? How do we encourage them, to use the language of Chad Hanson, to see their written assignments as “investments, not just in the creation of something to turn in on a deadline, but rather, investments in your humanity”? In an Inside Higher Ed essay, Hanson describes how he tells students, “When you give yourself time to use your faculties, you end up changing the dimensions of your mind.”

But there’s the rub. Writing takes time. Teaching writing takes time. The practice of writing takes even more time. If there is still value in the time invested in developing human writing skills, where is the time to be found within the constraints of traditional writing courses? Writing practice used to take place primarily at home, on student PCs and notepads, over hours, days and weeks. Now that student writing is being chronically offloaded to a magical deus ex machina, Roose asks why teachers wouldn’t simply “switch to proctored exams, blue-book essays, and in-class group work”?

As a writing professor, my answer is: There isn’t time.

Shifting writing practice from a largely out-of-class endeavor to an in-class one doesn’t provide students with the time needed to develop writerly skills or to use writing as a mode of deep thinking. Nor does it allow for both instruction and sufficient hands-on practice. At my college, courses typically run either three days per week for a short 50 minutes per class or two days per week for 80 minutes. Even in a “pure” writing course, such time periods don’t allow for students to have the sustained practice they would need to develop skill as writers. The problem is even worse in writing-intensive courses for which a significant amount of class time is needed for discussing literary history, philosophy, political theory, religion, art history or sundry other topics.

The solution I propose is to invest more rather than less in writing instruction: Just as we require labs for science lecture courses, we should provide required “writing labs” as adjuncts to writing classes. Here I don’t mean a writing lab in the sense of a writing center where students can opt to go for peer assistance. By writing lab, I mean a multihour, credit-bearing, required time during which students practice writing on a weekly basis under the supervision of the course’s instructor or another experienced writing teacher. Such labs would be time in which students develop their autonomous critical thinking skills, tackling assignments from conception to completion, “cloister[ed]” away, as Niall Ferguson puts it, from dependency on AI machines. And if writing “lab” sounds unduly scientific for the teaching of a human art, call it a weekly workshop or practicum. (Yet, even the word “laboratory” derives, via medieval Latin, from laborare, which simply means “to work or labor.”) Whatever the name, the need is real: Writing cannot be taught without student labor.

The problem I am addressing is a critical one, with too few alarms being sounded in higher education circles, despite the plethora of articles about education and AI. Even as colleges tout writing skill as a major outcome of college education, I fear that writing education may quickly fall between the cracks, with out-of-class writing being abandoned out of frustration or despair and insufficient in-class time available for the deep learning writing requires. Quiet quitting, let’s call it, of a long-standing writing pedagogy.

If colleges still wish to claim writing skill as an important learning outcome, they need to become more deliberate about what it means to educate student writers in the age of AI. Toward that end, colleges must first reassert the importance of learning to write and articulate its abiding value as a human endeavor. Second, colleges must devote professional development resources to prepare faculty to teach writing in the age of AI. And finally—here’s the pith of my argument—colleges need to restructure traditional models of writing instruction so that students have ample time to practice writing in the classroom, with a community of human peers and under the supervision of a writing guide. Only in, with and under those circumstances will students be able to rediscover writing as a true labor of love.

Lowering college costs, boosting accountability and reforming accreditation will likely be at the top of congressional Republicans’ to-do list for 2026. But as public approval ratings for President Trump continue to decline and midterm elections loom, higher education policy experts across the political spectrum say congressional conservatives could be running out of time.

The push for more affordable higher education has been gaining momentum for years, and while it was a common refrain at the committee level in 2025, complex and sweeping debates over tax dollars soaked up much of lawmakers’ attention.

First, the Republicans passed their signature piece of legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which cut taxes for wealthy individuals, increased them for elite universities and overhauled the student loan system. Then, they turned their attention to disagreements on the federal budget—an impasse that led to the record 43-day government shutdown.

But in the few cases where members of the GOP did get to home in on college cost issues, whether via legislation or hearings, an underlying theme emerged—holding colleges accountable for their students’ return on investment.

Higher education experts have no doubt that concern will continue in 2026, but Congress won’t have the time or the oxygen needed to nail down real changes unless they figure out how to fund the government, which runs out of money again Jan. 31.

“The Republican majority is very conscious that it may be on the clock, and this would argue for trying to move rapidly and get things done,” said Rick Hess, a senior fellow and director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank. “But with the narrow and fractious House majority, the way the budget is going to chew up time going into January and the pressure on the Senate to get judges confirmed, it’s just going to be a challenge for them to find much time to move further higher ed–related legislation.”

Legislative Actions

Republicans spent much of 2025 using their control of Congress and the White House to pass what many industry leaders have described as the largest overhaul to higher education policy in more than a decade—the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. And while policy experts were initially skeptical that this multi-issue package could pass given the complex, restrictive nature of a legislative process called reconciliation, the GOP found a way.

The final bill, signed into law July 4, served as a major win for the GOP, expanding federal aid for low-income students to include nontraditional short-term training programs, limiting loans for graduate students, consolidating the number of repayment plans and increasing taxes on wealthy colleges, among other provisions.

Conservative policy experts like Hess praised the overhaul as “a much-needed and positive set of changes.”

“There’s certainly more that can be done, but I think it moved us in a substantially better direction than we’ve been,” he added.

But aside from OBBBA, little legislation concerning colleges and universities advanced. Only one bill tracked by Inside Higher Ed, the Laken Riley Act, reached the president’s desk. That law gave state attorneys general increased power over visas that could affect some international students and scholars. Others, including the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, a bill that forbids trans women from participating in women’s sports, and the DETERRENT Act, a bill designed to restrict foreign academic partnerships, made it out of the House in a matter of weeks but then got stuck in the Senate.

The story of 2025 in higher ed is a big, dramatic one, but it’s almost entirely one of executive branch activity.”

—Rick Hess, AEI

So when asked what congressional accomplishments stood out from 2025, progressive policy experts told Inside Higher Ed they didn’t see much. The things that did happen, they added, hurt students and institutions more than they helped.

“‘Accomplishments’ is not really the word I would use considering the challenges that higher education faced this year,” said Jared Bass, senior vice president of education at the Center for American Progress. “I don’t think that Congress actually met the moment for affordability or defending and preserving higher education.”

Instead, he said, legislators placed the burden of cost on the backs of students.

“The Republican argument is by cutting access to these loans they’ll actually drive down costs. But we’ll have to wait and see if that happens,” he explained. “But I would say it didn’t actually make college more affordable. It just made resources less available.”

Hearings Highlight Priorities

Congress did, however, hold a number of higher ed–related hearings to dive into their priorities, which included improving the transparency of financial aid offers, establishing stronger records of the skills students gain and elevating ideological concerns like allegedly illegal use of diversity, equity and inclusion practices and liberal biases in the Truman Scholarship program.

Although the House Committee on Education and Workforce hosted a greater number of higher ed hearings, some of the more notable panels came from the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

“They actually wanted to put the ‘E’ back in HELP and focus on education issues,” said Emmanual Guillory, senior director of government relations at the American Council on Education, a leading higher ed lobbying group. “That wasn’t really the case under prior leadership. So that was good.”

Tom Williams/CQ–Roll Call Inc./Getty Images

Much of the shift in interest, Guillory added, was likely tied to new leadership. This was the first year that Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, held the gavel. In the last Congress, Cassidy had served as ranking member.

The House Committee on Education and Workforce also had new leadership, as Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina handed the baton to Rep. Tim Walberg from Michigan. But it was the Senate’s tactics that led to more meaningful legislative progress in ACE’s view.

“Mr. Walberg may have pushed a slightly more aggressive agenda. The House definitely had more hearings in the higher ed space and tackled more hard-punching issues, but in the Senate they took a different approach,” Guillory said. “When it came to those difficult issues and conversations, the Senate chose to discuss those a bit more quietly and really work on solutions with stakeholder groups and ask, ‘How can we be influential with actual legislation?’”

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

When asked for their reflections on the year, Cassidy and Walberg pointed to OBBBA, which they touted as a historic reform to drive down college costs and limit students from taking on insurmountable debt. But while Walberg then looked back to the ongoing antisemitism discussions and concerns about “hostile learning environments,” Cassidy touted his legislation aimed at helping students better understand the cost of college.

“College is one of the largest financial investments many Americans make, but there is little information to ensure students make the right decision,” he said. “That is why I introduced the College Transparency Act to empower families with better information so they can decide which schools and programs of study are best suited to fit their unique needs and desired outcomes.”

Democrats Fight Back

Meanwhile, Democrats in both chambers said they were forced to spend much of their time and attention maintaining the Department of Education, an agency they say is needed to do much of the work to fulfill Republicans’ priorities, be it addressing antisemitism and other civil rights issues or driving down college costs.

From his early days on the campaign trail in 2024, Trump has promised to dismantle the department, and starting in March of 2025, he began doing so—all without congressional approval.

First, the president laid off nearly half of the agency’s staff. Then, just a week later, he signed an executive order directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to close down the department “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.”

Later, he tried to slash federal spending, redistribute grant dollars and use the government shutdown to lay off even more employees. Most recently, Trump approved a series of six interagency agreements that reallocate many of ED’s responsibilities to other agencies.

Through it all, the Democrats repeatedly decried his “attack” on higher ed. They used statements, town halls and demonstrations outside the department to draw attention to decisions they said would be “detrimental” to “students, teachers and educators.”

Katherine Knott/Inside Higher Ed

Rep. Bobby Scott, a Virginia Democrat and ranking member of the House education committee, said he has spent much of his year in defense mode, pushing back against each of these actions.

“The administration has been dismantling the Department of Education, making access to education much less available,” he said. “And we’ve been trying to keep it together.”

But both Scott and Sen. Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat and former educator, acknowledged that as members of the minority, they can only do so much. A few Republicans have joined them in voicing concern about specific issues, but not enough, they say.

“We’ve had some successes—forcing some funding to be restored and rejecting, for example, President Trump’s push to slash Pell Grants by half in our draft funding bill for the coming year—but ultimately, we need a whole lot more bipartisan outrage and pushback from Republicans to truly start to undo the sweeping damage Trump has already caused,” Murray said.

And it wasn’t just Democrats who raised concerns.

“Congress has done very little to ask important questions, to ask the executive branch to justify some of the actions it is taking,” said Hess from AEI. “Hill Republicans are very much marching in lockstep to what the White House asks. The story of 2025 in higher ed is a big, dramatic one, but it’s almost entirely one of executive branch activity.”

What’s Ahead in 2026?

Now that congressional Republicans have completed a number of the tasks they set for themselves back in January 2025, most experts say two remaining items—college cost and accreditation reform—will be top priorities in 2026.

Most sources Inside Higher Ed spoke with anticipated that college cost reduction and transparency would be addressed first, largely because related bills made it out of a House committee in December and senators held a hearing on the topic. The bills, which would standardize financial aid offers and create a universal net price calculator, have already gained some significant bipartisan support.

Meanwhile, many remain skeptical of Republicans’ proposals for accreditation. Although no exact legislative language has been released, GOP lawmakers and Trump officials at the Department of Education have called for a major overhaul to not only ensure better student outcomes but also to deconstruct a what they see as a systemic liberal bias.

“I would hope to see a focus on accreditors taking an active role and not just sort of a check-the-box approach to quality assurance,” said Carolyn Fast, director of higher education policy at the Century Foundation, a left-leaning think tank. “What I’m concerned about is some of the efforts to reform accreditation don’t seem necessarily as concerned about making sure that the system is working in terms of their role as gatekeepers of federal funds … but more about political and cultural war issues.”

Bass from CAP said that he will be keeping a close eye on the midterm election campaign trail for a pulse on higher ed policy in general this year, as it gives the public a chance to speak up and direct change.

“I’m curious to see how conversations about affordability play out, not just for higher education or education over all, but just for the country,” he said. “There are going to be over 30 gubernatorial races next year, and the debate gets shaped over key issues like higher education, like college costs, like affordability. So it will be very interesting to see how both parties are going to show up.”

With just over two weeks left in office, Republican Virginia attorney general Jason Miyares agreed with the federal Justice Department that a 2020 law granting in-state tuition to undocumented students is unconstitutional.

In a joint court filing, Miyares and lawyers for the Justice Department asked a federal judge to declare the Virginia Dream Act invalid and bar state authorities from enforcing it. If approved, the joint consent decree order would make Virginia the fourth state to scrap its policies that allow eligible undocumented students to pay the lower in-state tuition rate. The joint agreement came just one day after the Trump administration sued Virginia over its in-state tuition policies—the seventh such lawsuit.

In response to these challenges, some states have fought the Justice Department, while several Republican-led states quickly agreed to stop offering undocumented students in-state tuition. The rapid change in policies spurred confusion and chaos for students as they scrambled to find ways to pay for their education. Some advocacy groups have sought to join the lawsuits to challenge the Justice Department.

Miyares, who lost his re-election bid to Democrat Jay Jones in November, wrote on social media that it’s clear that the 2020 statute “is preempted by federal law.”

“Illegal immigrants cannot be given benefits that are not available to American citizens,” he wrote. “Rewarding noncitizens with the privilege of in-state tuition is wrong and only further incentivizes illegal immigration. I have always said I will call balls and strikes, and I am proud to play a part in ending this unlawful program.”

Trump lawyers argued in the Virginia lawsuit and elsewhere that such policies discriminate against U.S. citizens because out-of-state students aren’t eligible for in-state tuition. In Virginia, undocumented students can qualify for the reduced rate if they graduated from a state high school and if they or their parents filed Virginia income tax returns for at least two years before they enroll at a postsecondary institution.

Jones, the incoming Democratic attorney general, criticized the administration’s lawsuit as “an attack on our students and a deliberate attempt to beat the clock to prevent a new administration from defending them.” He added that his team is reviewing their legal options.

In the meantime, the Dream Project, a Virginia nonprofit that supports undocumented students, is seeking to intervene in the lawsuit and has asked the court to delay its consideration of the proposed order. An estimated 13,000 undocumented students were enrolled in Virginia colleges and universities in 2018, according to the filing.

The Dream Project argued in its filing that it and the students it serves would be harmed if the Virginia Dream Act is overturned and that the court should hear a defense of the law.

“The motion by the Trump administration was deliberately filed over a holiday in the dead of night without briefing, without public scrutiny, and without hearing from our scholars and families who would be impacted by this judgment,” Dream Project executive director Zuraya Tapia-Hadley said in a news release. “The state and federal administrations are attempting to re-legislate and set aside the will of the people. If we don’t intervene, that essentially opens the door for settled law to be thrown out with the wave of a pen via a judgment.”

Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said he’s hopeful that the judge, Robert Payne, will grant the motion for intervention, noting that he “is a stickler for proper procedures.”

“There’s a basic premise that there should be two sides to every litigation, and there aren’t two sides in this litigation,” he said, adding that if the judge does approve the consent decree, the General Assembly could always put a law similar to the Virginia Dream Act back in place.

To Tobias, the legislation is constitutional and should withstand a legal challenge.

“This administration has a very different view of what the Constitution requires, so they can make their arguments,” he said. “But they shouldn’t be making them in a vacuum without hearing the other side.”

The National Institutes of Health is deciding, per court agreements, whether to award or deny droves of grant applications that the agency previously either rejected or shelved. This funding was stalled last year amid the Trump administration’s blunt moves to restrict research into certain disfavored topics, such as diversity, equity and inclusion—though researchers and state attorneys general said officials shot down a greater range of projects, including ones that could save lives.

The NIH’s agreements, laid out in court filings in two ongoing lawsuits, are already bearing fruit. A spokesperson for the Massachusetts attorney general’s office, which is leading one of the cases, said the agreement in that suit promises decisions on more than 5,000 grants nationally. On Dec. 29, the date of the agreement, the NIH issued 528 grant decisions, 499 of which were approvals, the spokesperson said.

A spokesperson for the American Civil Liberties Union, which is leading the other case, said the agreement in that case involves about 400 grants. He said the NIH awarded at least 135 out of 146 applications in a batch of decisions on Dec. 29.

The filings set a series of dates by which the NIH agreed to decide on awarding or denying other types of grants. The last deadline is July 31.

The agreements are another example of the Trump administration reversing many of its sweeping cuts to research funding in response to litigation. Researchers and organizations filed suit after suit last year after the NIH and other federal funding agencies abruptly terminated previously awarded grants and sat on applications for new ones.

In a news release, the ACLU said the grants that the NIH will now decide on “address urgent public health issues, including HIV prevention, Alzheimer’s disease, LGBTQ+ health, and sexual violence.” ACLU of Massachusetts legal director Jessie Rossman said in the release that the NIH’s “unprecedented” and “unlawful” actions put “many scientists’ careers in limbo, including hundreds of members of the American Public Health Association and the UAW union.”

ACLU lawyers are among the attorneys representing those groups, Ibis Reproductive Health and individual researchers in a suit they filed in April against the NIH and the larger Health and Human Services Department for stalling and rejecting grant funding. Democratic state attorneys general filed a similar suit in the same court, the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts.

The agencies agreed to decide these grant applications in exchange for the plaintiffs dismissing some of their claims. The agencies didn’t admit wrongdoing.

In a news release, the Massachusetts attorney general’s office said the Trump administration “indefinitely withheld issuing final decisions on applications that had already received approval from the relevant review panels,” leaving the states that sued “awaiting decisions on billions of dollars.”

The release said that, for example, when the suit was filed in April, the University of Massachusetts “had 353 applications for NIH funding whose review had been delayed, signifying millions in potential grant funding that would aid in lifesaving medical research.” Massachusetts attorney general Andrea Joy Campbell said in a statement that “lifesaving studies related to Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, and other devastating illnesses were frozen indefinitely—stealing hope from countless families across the country and putting lives at risk.”

It’s unclear how much money the NIH may dole out in total. An HHS spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed that the “NIH cannot comment on the status of individual grant applications or deliberations.”

“The agency remains committed to supporting rigorous, evidence-based research that advances the health of all Americans,” the spokesperson said. HHS and the NIH didn’t provide interviews or further comment.

Meanwhile, a legal fight continues over grants that the NIH previously approved but later canceled.

Lingering Questions

In June, in these same two cases, U.S. District Judge William Young ordered the NIH to restore grants the agency had awarded but then—after Trump retook the White House—terminated midgrant.

Young, a Reagan appointee, criticized the federal government for not formally defining DEI, despite using that term to justify terminating grants. He said at a hearing that he’d “never seen racial discrimination by the government like this” during his four decades as a federal judge.

But, two months later, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-to-4 preliminary decision, stayed Young’s ruling ordering restoration of the grants. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee, wrote for the majority that Young “likely lacked jurisdiction to hear challenges to the grant terminations, which belong in the Court of Federal Claims.” However, STAT reported that the NIH had restored more than 2,000 terminated grants following Young’s ruling, and it didn’t reverse course after the Supreme Court decision.

That question of whether researchers with canceled grants must ultimately try their luck before the Court of Federal Claims is now before the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals. There’s a hearing Tuesday in that matter.

Questions linger about when the grant fight will really end. In a video interview with journalist Paul Thacker—released Wednesday and previously reported on by STAT—NIH director Jay Bhattacharya said that, despite the grant restorations, any grants dealing with DEI that come up for renewal this year won’t be funded. Bhattacharya distinguished between cutting a grant and not renewing it.

He said that, “as best I can understand the legal aspects,” the courts have said his agency can’t cut restored grants. “But, when it comes to renewal, those grants no longer meet NIH priorities … so when they come up for renewal over the course of the year, we won’t renew them,” he said.

Bhattacharya said the NIH’s DEI-related work “did not actually have any chance of improving the health of minority populations.” He said, “I think that the shift away from DEI is of a piece with the rest of what we’re trying to do at the NIH, which is to do research that actually makes the lives of people better.”