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Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University has banned university-funded “identity-based Graduation Achievement Ceremonies,” the institution announced on its website. The Virginian-Pilot reported the news Thursday, though the university made the announcement Jan. 26.

“The decision aligns with guidance from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, which states that federal civil rights law prohibits using race in decisions related to graduation ceremonies and cautions that such practices may be perceived as segregation,” the university said in its announcement. But it’s unclear what guidance it was referencing.

A year ago, the Office for Civil Rights told universities that identity-based graduations were illegal. “In a shameful echo of a darker period in this country’s history, many American schools and universities even encourage segregation by race at graduation ceremonies,” the office wrote in a Dear Colleague letter. Some universities canceled similar ceremonies.

But, last April, a federal judge blocked the department from enforcing that guidance and, on Jan. 21—five days before Virginia Tech’s statement—the department gave up defending it.

A Virginia Tech spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed that recognized student organizations can still use nonuniversity funds to host the events on campus. The university’s online statement said, “Student groups planning events for graduating seniors should contact the appropriate scheduling office, such as Event Services, by the end of January.”

In an email, the university spokesperson said, “Virginia Tech decided to end its graduation achievement ceremonies to ensure that we are compliant with the law. We will continue to seek ways to celebrate the academic accomplishment of all our students in ways that [are] consistent with current law and are open to all members of the university community.”

I’ve spent much of my career working as a college administrator. I’ve held senior roles, carried expansive portfolios, and had titles that critics of higher education increasingly cite as evidence of “administrative bloat.” I understand why those titles and the organizational charts behind them can feel alienating to faculty. They can reinforce an unhealthy sense of “us versus them” on campus.

But after years inside those roles, I’ve come to believe that title inflation is not the core problem it’s often made out to be. It’s visible. It’s frustrating. And it’s easy to blame. However, focusing solely on titles risks mistaking a symptom for the disease, and in the process, leaving the real cause of administrative overload unexamined.

That’s why Austin Sarat’s recent Inside Higher Ed essay asking, “How Many Vice Presidents Does a College Need?” resonated with me, even as I think it ultimately misdiagnoses the challenge. Sarat is right to be uneasy about what he calls the “vice presidentialization” of higher education. Titles matter. Hierarchies matter. And the proliferation of vice presidents deserves scrutiny.

But the growth of administrative titles is not what is hollowing out institutional capacity or widening the divide between faculty and administrators. It is what happens when leadership repeatedly avoids the more challenging work of setting priorities and enforcing limits.

Criticism of administrative growth in higher education is not new, and it is not entirely unfounded. Colleges and universities have undeniably expanded their administrative functions over time. But the ideas behind many of those roles are sound and, in many cases, essential. Retention matters. Financial aid matters. Student support, compliance and data matter. Investing in these functions improves student success. The problem begins with what happens after those roles are created.

Over time, administrators are assigned work that is only loosely connected or not connected at all to the responsibilities their titles suggest. Priorities proliferate. New initiatives emerge. New reporting requirements arrive from accreditors, legislators, donors and boards. Crises, real and perceived, demand immediate attention. Almost nothing is ever taken away. Each new priority is layered on top of existing work, often without clarity about duration, ownership or trade-offs. Vice presidents effectively become executives’ administrative assistants.

To understand an institution’s true priorities, don’t start with the strategic plan. Look instead at how administrators are actually spending their time. What you’ll often find is that people hired to do one essential job are doing five or six others instead. Much of that work is not merely peripheral; it is squarely outside the scope of the role. This is not a failure of individual administrators. It is a failure of organizational discipline.

I know many of the people filling these roles. I have been one of them. They are not avoiding faculty or students. They would love to spend some time in a classroom. They are not ignoring phone calls and emails out of indifference. Most of them are in it for the right reasons: the students and the national imperative of postsecondary attainment. If they are rarely in their offices at all, it is because they are being pulled into meetings, task forces and crisis response for issues far removed from their core responsibilities. Many work nights and weekends, skip vacations and still fall behind, not because they lack commitment but because the system virtually guarantees overload.

This is where Sarat’s critique falls short. It’s not that administrators take their titles too seriously. It’s that institutions take on too many priorities without making corresponding choices about what not to do. And while many of those initiatives might be “good,” too many of them fall outside the core scope of educating students. The result is not just administrative strain, but less institutional attention devoted to teaching and learning itself.

Our colleges and universities are under greater and more varied pressure than ever. They are being squeezed from every direction: demographic decline, rising costs, declining public investment, growing accountability demands and increasingly diverse student needs have made it impossible to continue operating as if capacity were unlimited. Yet too often, institutional “strategy” still amounts to adding priorities rather than choosing among them. What this moment demands instead is institutional redesign, a deliberate rethinking of structures, roles and work so that colleges and universities can focus on what matters most for today’s students.

Real strategy is not about what initiatives institutions adopt, but what they deliberately decide not to do. In a moment when today’s students need clearer pathways, stronger support and better outcomes, institutions do not have the luxury of letting work continue to creep in unchecked, or of trying to be all things to all people. When leaders avoid making those choices, the pressure doesn’t disappear. They push it downward and outward until adding people and titles becomes the default way to cope.

Eventually, something must give. When a vice president reaches the limit of what one person can reasonably manage, institutions rarely narrow the role or clarify boundaries. Instead, they add another layer: an associate vice president, an assistant vice president. Titles proliferate not because administrators crave status, but because institutions use people and titles as workarounds for unresolved leadership failures.

Ironically, this is precisely what deepens the divide Sarat worries about. When administrators are stretched impossibly thin, they become less present, less responsive and less connected to academic life. Faculty experience this as indifference or bureaucratic arrogance. In truth, it is structural misalignment. The distance is real, but it is produced by overload, not hierarchy.

Which is why the solution cannot simply be fewer vice presidents or humbler titles. It must start with presidents, boards and faculty leaders willing to exercise real leadership discipline. That means distinguishing between core academic work and aspirational initiatives. It means abandoning programs and committees as readily as launching them. And it means acknowledging an essential truth that higher education often avoids: Adding priorities without subtracting others is not strategic ambition—it is organizational debt.

The best administration is often invisible, not because it lacks value, but because it is doing its job so well that teaching and learning can take center stage. Centering students and their education should mean fewer symbolic fights over titles and more honest conversations about priorities, capacity and trade-offs.

Sarat is right to warn against importing corporate hierarchy into higher education. However, to address administrative bloat seriously, we must look beyond the organizational chart. The real question is not how many vice presidents a college needs. It is the number of priorities an institution is willing to abandon to serve its academic mission effectively. This is a test of leadership and discipline. We need to do a better job ensuring that our institutions are designed around teaching our students rather than running an ever-expanding business enterprise.

Green River College trustees announced this week they voted to terminate President Suzanne Johnson’s contract following a budget crisis that prompted campus wide cuts, KUOW reported.

The college’s budget deficit climbed to a projected $14.2 million last year, prompting Johnson to call for a hiring freeze and 5 percent cuts across every division, though a spokesperson told the NPR affiliate that Green River has since achieved a balanced budget. But Johnson was ousted amid the fallout when the board terminated her contract ahead of a scheduled no-confidence vote.

Faculty quoted in the report argued she was too slow to act on financial challenges and not transparent enough about the college’s budget squeeze.

The radio station noted that the Board of Trustees did not specify why Johnson’s contract was terminated and credited her with increasing bachelor’s degree offerings and enrollment at the public community college in Washington state, which she led for nearly a decade. Trustees praised her for leading the college through the coronavirus pandemic with “a steady hand while consistently demonstrating compassion, understanding, and care for our campus community.”

The board appointed vice president of college relations, George Frasier, as interim president.

For all his criticism and condemnation of higher education, Texas governor Gregg Abbott is proud of the state’s institutions. He’s designated billions of public dollars to fund them. Speaking to a crowd of 400 higher ed leaders at the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board’s leadership conference in 2023, Abbott praised attendees for putting the state “on a trajectory of excellence in higher education.”

A high-quality higher education has many components, he said, but one of the most important elements “is having top-notch research universities to educate the next generation of innovative leaders needed by employers in the state.”

He told the crowd that the reason CEOs are choosing to call Texas home is because of the “premier workforce” universities are creating.

It’s puzzling, then, that as he’s championing the state’s research might, he has made it harder for institutions to attract the best academic talent in the world. Last week Abbott put a freeze until the end of May next year on public universities granting new H-1B visas without first obtaining written permission from the Texas Workforce Commission.

For nearly 40 years, universities have used H-1B visas to attract the best and brightest minds to their institutions. With 12 public, R-1 research universities, Texas has the second highest number of H-1B visa holders in the country, behind California’s colleges. Lawmakers allowed universities to be exempt from the national annual cap on H-1B visas because they recognized how important foreign academic talent is to the innovation economy and training the next generation of workers.

When Abbott announced the freeze, he cited reports of abuse of the H-1B visa program and said he wanted to ensure “American jobs are going to American workers.” But higher education isn’t using cheap foreign labor to avoid hiring American citizens. On the contrary, institutions are competing in a global marketplace against China, who introduced its own version of an H-1B visa last year, and English-speaking peers in the U.K., Canada and Australia to bring the best mathematicians, epidemiologists, economists and others to their campuses.

Abbott understands how important academic research is to the Texas economy. In 2023, he signed into law the Texas Semiconductor Innovation Fund meant to encourage the expansion of the semi-conductor industry in the state and “further develop the expertise and capacity of Texas institutions of higher education” in order to maintain the state’s position as “the nation’s leader in semiconductor manufacturing.”

In December, Abbott awarded $4.8 million from the fund to the Texas Quantum Institute (TQI) at the University of Texas at Austin to establish the QLab, a quantum-enhanced semiconductor metrology facility.

TQI co-director Elaine Li is a physicist from China. According to her UT Austin bio, she came to the U.S. after her professor at Beijing Normal University encouraged her to expand her horizons. She thought “What the heck? It might be fun,” and so she enrolled at the University of Michigan to get a Ph.D. She’s been at UT Austin since 2007.

I don’t know if Li was ever in the country on an H-1B visa, but her story is typical of so many other international researchers who come here—she’s smart, hungry and passionate about working on complex problems with the best minds in the world. Those are the type of talented people who help cultivate Abbott’s premier workforce in Texas. Fewer H-1B visa holders means fewer physicists advancing Texas’s semiconductor economy, fewer biomedical researchers at its health centers and fewer top-notch professors in its classrooms inspiring the next generation of innovative leaders.

In September, Trump raised the cost of an H-1B visa to $100,000, making it prohibitive for many colleges to recruit talented researchers. On the back of that decision, economists downgraded their predictions for the country’s economic growth because of the loss of foreign talent. That Texas doubled down on the restrictions by freezing new applications is short-sighted and economically risky. Abbott, up for reelection in November, may have scored a political win by stopping universities from recruiting foreign scholars, but the long-term consequences to the state’s innovation economy could outlast his time in office.

As the U.S. tightens visa restrictions for international students and slashes research funding—threatening its status as a global innovation powerhouse —it’s tempting to think American universities can simply go offshore to find new students or new funding. But the reality is far more complicated, particularly if the strategy is an international branch campus (IBC).

IBCs represent a paradox within global higher education, with some universities fully embracing the strategy and others outright rejecting the concept. Critics have dismissed IBCs as hollow replicas of their home institutions. Yet research shows that many have developed robust academic programs and even extensive research capacities. And, like the rest of the postsecondary universe, IBCs span a wide spectrum in terms of quality, purpose and impact.

The United States has led the world in establishing IBCs. The movement surged in the 2000s, a period of “gold rush”–like expansion driven by the pursuit of new revenue, visibility and rankings, but slowed dramatically over the past decade as political scrutiny and geopolitical tensions grew. In fact, until last year, we’d seen almost no IBCs of U.S. universities created since 2019.

Shifting policies and global dynamics are reigniting interest (and debate). Political concern contributed to the closure of Texas A&M University’s “profitable” branch in Qatar and heightened scrutiny of U.S. branches in China. Federal limits on international engagement and student visa delays and travel restrictions are causing some universities to once again look outward. Illinois Institute of Technology’s planned branch in India, Texas State University’s new campus in Mexico, and the University of New Haven’s forthcoming site in Saudi Arabia suggest momentum. Yet, as institutions turn toward IBCs as a hedge against domestic uncertainty, the path forward remains fraught with its own uncertainty.

Over 15 years studying international branch campuses (IBCs) through the Cross-Border Education Research Team (C-BERT), we’ve tracked the rise, fall and reinvention of IBCs on (nearly) every continent—Antarctica doesn’t have one yet. From governance breakdowns and cultural clashes to accountability gaps and student mobility shifts, we’ve learned that launching a campus abroad requires far more than institutional desire.

If your institution is considering joining this wave, here are six things you should know before you plant a flag abroad.

1. You’re Launching a Start-Up, Not a Clone

Opening an IBC is more akin to launching a start-up than expanding a franchise. Your institution needs to be ready to act like an international entrepreneur, taking on associated risks—otherwise, it’s not ready to run a campus abroad.

A report on successful IBCs that we coauthored found they required profoundly different leadership strategies than what you use on your mature campus back home. Building an IBC is not just duplicating your brand; it’s creating a new entity in a foreign regulatory, cultural and economic environment.

Take the case of Michigan State University’s now-closed Dubai campus or the University of Nevada, Las Vegas’s closed campus in Singapore. These weren’t failures of vision but of execution. There was misalignment between institutional ambition, financial resources and operational capacity.

From hiring faculty to navigating construction delays or managing local political expectations to balancing dual accreditation systems, successful campuses tended to emerge from institutions that approached their IBCs as strategically distinct ventures—not mere clones of the home campus.

2. Local Alignment Isn’t Optional—It’s Everything

The data is clear: IBCs with strong host-country alignment, including government support, regulatory clarity and local partnerships, are far more likely to survive. Several Gulf-based campuses (like New York University in Abu Dhabi or Cornell University’s medical school in Qatar) succeeded because they were codeveloped with local governments and embedded in national strategies for higher education and economic growth. Others closed, like George Mason University’s Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) campus after disagreements with local officials over enrollment and revenue expectations. As we lay out in a recent article, lack of alignment is one of the greatest risks in these endeavors.

Building strong connections and communications is vital. IBCs established with a purely export mindset struggle to gain traction, enroll students or weather local shifting political winds. IBCs don’t start with the good will and reputation developed over decades like you have at home. Work is needed to build it with new partners. At the same time, your longstanding stakeholders at home need to be kept on board. Nevertheless, abrupt ends happen, such as with the National University of Singapore ending its partnership with Yale University or, as previously mentioned, the Texas A&M Board of Regents pulling the plug on the campus in Qatar.

3. Your “International” Students May Never Leave Their Country

IBCs increasingly serve place-bound learners seeking international credentials close to home. Our research shows that the majority of IBC students are either from the host country or region, a finding with implications for recruitment, student support and how institutions define mission and measure global impact.

Most models of international education are built around mobility—students crossing borders to pursue degrees abroad. But IBCs flip that paradigm: The institution crosses borders.

As we’ve explored in previous work, this shift complicates the definition of “international student.” For example, how do you classify a Korean student enrolled at a U.S. branch campus such as SUNY Korea, and who is being taught in English and earning an American degree? How about a Chinese student who does the same thing? Or a U.S. student who pursues an IBC degree at that same SUNY Korea branch campus? Distinguishing between domestic or international gets complicated fast.

Understanding this shift is essential for institutions considering a branch campus, not only to reach the right students, but to design a truly global learning experience that reflects their realities.

4. Your Governance Model May Not Survive the Flight

One of our key findings is that governance misalignment is a top reason IBCs flounder. Who oversees hiring? Curriculum? Budget? How is the decision made to open, and who decides when to close?

Governance challenges are underappreciated risks of IBCs. Recent work highlights how IBCs operate within multi-sovereign governance structures, with accountability to home regulators, host governments, multiple quality assurance agencies, local boards and internal university systems. These overlapping authorities often have different priorities, leading to conflicting mandates.

Consider the issue of academic freedom. How does an institution protect academic freedom abroad given that host countries’ sensitivities and restrictions need to be managed? Home campus structures may not be well-suited to the task, and completely distinct policies would push aside coherent institutional mission. What governance structures allow your university to thread the needle? Institutions must define how decisions are made, who is accountable, and how the IBC integrates into broader institutional planning right from the start, before a crisis.

5. Accountability Systems Don’t Travel

Traditional quality assurance systems are built on national sovereignty. But IBCs occupy a gray space: Their degrees are awarded in the name of the home university, their students are often local to the branch campus and their operations are subject to foreign regulators. This creates major accountability tensions. A campus may be accredited in the U.S. but fall short of host-country standards—or vice versa.

In our work on cross-border accountability, we argue for more nuanced models, acknowledging dual jurisdiction and adaptive frameworks rather than simply exporting home-country norms. IBCs require “fit-for-purpose” quality-assurance systems—ones that are context-specific and created in dialogue with host-country partners. Your U.S. accreditation may not serve as a global stamp of approval and won’t absolve you of meeting local quality criteria.

Too many IBCs have stumbled by assuming that U.S. accreditation equals global legitimacy, where really it is just one link in the value proposition.

6. It Can Work—But Only with Commitment, Capacity and Collaboration

Despite challenges and several closures, many IBCs have also repeatedly proven their worth. But this requires long-term institutional commitment, sustained investment, and a collaborative approach that aligns academic quality, local relevance and strategic vision.

Consider Georgia Tech-Europe, established in 1990. Beginning as a small graduate engineering program in Metz, France, it has become a globally integrated component of Georgia Tech’s research and teaching mission as well as home to an engineering lab funded by CNRS (the French National Center for Scientific Research). In fact, our research has shown that many IBCs have benefited from local research funding and successfully expanded universities’ international research collaborations. Success lies in deep faculty engagement, integration into European research networks, and consistency in institutional support over more than three decades.

Another, Temple University, Japan Campus (TUJ), established in 1982 and officially recognized by Japan’s Ministry of Education in 2005, is often highlighted as one of the most established American branch campuses abroad. TUJ offers U.S. degree programs taught in English and enrolls a highly international student body. It provides a full liberal arts and professional education experience. The campus has also become a hub for intellectual exchange in the region through its Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies, which regularly convenes global experts for lectures and symposia. With its strong institutional integration over time and diverse academic offerings, TUJ stands as a significant model of global engagement in higher education.

Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS)—Nanjing Center offers another compelling example. Established in 1986 as a partnership with Nanjing University, one of the earliest U.S.–China higher education joint ventures, it has become a globally recognized hub for graduate education in international relations. The model is distinguished by its bilingual curriculum, shared governance with Johns Hopkins and Nanjing Universities, and a focus on fostering cross-cultural scholarship and policy engagement. Its success rests on decades of sustained collaboration, careful navigation of regulatory environments, and the cultivation of trust across institutional and cultural boundaries.

In these cases, and others like them, success was neither fast nor guaranteed. It required:

• Multi-year institutional buy-in beyond the presidency or provost’s office
• Faculty champions who shaped curriculum and governance with integrity
• Strong on-site leadership with operational autonomy and deep cross-cultural fluency
• Local partnerships with government, industry and communities to create shared value
• Financial models that prioritized mission and quality over short-term revenue generation
• Strategical meeting of a need that was not already being met by the host country—offering added value

IBCs can be laboratories for innovation, platforms for diplomacy and engines for capacity building. But that’s only if institutions are ready to treat them as deeply collaborative, institution-defining commitments—not branding exercises.

Conclusion

U.S. universities revisiting the idea of international branch campuses face a more consequential question than ever—not just where to go, but why? For as long as IBCs have existed, the tension between mission and money has shaped their success or failure. Getting the motivation right is critical in today’s volatile political climate, marked by rising restrictions on international engagement, shrinking research funding and growing skepticism of globalization.

IBCs conceived as a short-term financial fix or branding play will almost certainly falter. But when grounded in purpose, mutual learning, authentic partnerships and shared commitment to expanding access and knowledge, an IBC can be a vital part of a university’s long-term strategy and bridge an increasingly fractured world.

More than simply hedging against political uncertainty, opening an IBC requires defining what sort of institution and what kind of global actor a university aspires to be.

The College Board will prohibit students from wearing smart glasses—wearable, internet-connected computers that allow users to see a computer display in the lenses—while taking the SAT, starting in March 2026.

The organization has long banned any wearable electronics, such as Apple AirPods and Apple Watches, said Priscilla Rodriguez, senior vice president of college readiness assessments at the College Board. Such devices, as well as students’ phones, are taken away by the test’s proctor before the test begins; the rule outlawing smart glasses is just an extension of that existing policy.

Although the first smart glasses emerged in the early 2010s, the technology has risen to prominence in recent years, especially as companies such as Meta and Google have debuted artificial intelligence–enabled versions of the product. As they’ve become more common, professors have also raised alarm bells about whether they will be used for cheating; they fear that students will use them to scan tests and get fed the answers by AI in real time without detection.

At least one documented example exists of a student using smart glasses to cheat; a student in Tokyo was caught using his spectacles to post questions from a college entrance exam on the social media site X and received answers from other social media users.

An op-ed by professors at the University of Victoria in Canada also warned that the threat of smart glasses in the classroom goes beyond cheating. They also discussed them as a threat to academic freedom; the glasses could allow students to record their professors without their professors knowing they’re being filmed, allowing them to leak lectures or even create deepfakes, the professors said.

Outside of higher education, they have been criticized for violating people’s privacy as it has become increasingly common for social media content creators to secretly record their conversations with strangers via smart glasses and post those videos online.

SAT proctors are now trained to spot and take away students’ smart glasses if they spot them. Although the glasses look similar to a regular pair of spectacles, Rodriguez said most mainstream smart glasses brands have a distinctive look with thick, black rims, and when they’re in use, the camera on the front lights up.

“It’s a noticeable light, so if someone were taking a video, a photo, having someone talk to them through the glasses, etc., the light shines and that’s kind of like the dead giveaway,” she said.

Students will not be allowed to wear the devices even if they are prescription glasses, she noted. If students are unable to take the test without their smart glasses, they will be asked to return on a different day to take the test with a regular pair of glasses.

So far, Rodriguez said, she is unaware of any instances where students have been caught cheating with smart glasses in the SAT, but the step to ban the devices was taken preemptively.

“We have a really robust test security team here at College Board, coupled with, really, an industry-leading technology team. So, between those two, they’re always looking out to say, ‘what could be next? What’s the next frontier if you’re trying to gain an advantage on this test?’” she said. “They were monitoring the pre-launch announcements of these kinds of glasses and gadgets well before they hit the market, so we were ready.”

Texas A&M University is closing its women’s and gender studies program, effective immediately, to comply with a new system board policy that limits discussions of “race or gender ideology” on campus.

“[As] part of the broader implementation of the recently updated System policy, we made the difficult decision to begin winding down Women’s and Gender Studies academic programs, including the BA, BS, Graduate Certificate and the Minor,” Alan Sams, Texas A&M’s provost and executive vice president, wrote in a letter to faculty and staff Friday, according to a copy published by KBTX, a local TV news station in College Station, Tex. “This decision is based on the requirements of System policy and limited student interest in the program based on enrollment over the past several years.”

But free expression advocates and Texas A&M faculty decried the move, which they said was the result of an opaque process and represents another threat to academic freedom.

“Women’s and Gender Studies at Texas A&M has served generations of Aggies and advanced the core values of the institution throughout its history,” the university’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors wrote in a public statement. “The AAUP remains steadfast in its opposition to Interim President Williams’s draconian decision, which represents a threat to the entire university community by devaluing student degrees, undermining faculty governance, and diminishing its institutional reputation.”

Texas A&M first began offering women’s and gender studies courses in 1979 amid national growth of the academic discipline. According to the faculty who run the program, such courses are still relevant almost 50 years later.

“The program serves the university at a particularly critical moment in its history by bringing a long history of multidisciplinary research, curricula, pedagogy, and education infrastructure to an institution that is only recently, and under new leadership, recognizing the urgent need to work across disciplinary borders to address the problems and opportunities of twenty-first century community, culture, and society,” the program’s website states.

“Additionally, in a moment of incendiary dispute across cultural, social, and political difference, Women’s and Gender Studies remains a thoroughly informed, established, intellectual base working at the cutting edge of cultural and social research to address difference within community.”

At present, the program has 25 majors and 31 minors enrolled, according to an email Cynthia Werner, senior executive associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, sent to women’s and gender studies faculty. While a teach-out plan is in place to allow current students to complete their degrees or programs—meaning the university will still offer some courses in the discipline for up to six more semesters—“effective immediately, students will not be able to enroll in these curricular options,” Werner wrote.

The announcement comes after faculty and administrators reviewed 5,400 course syllabi “to ensure compliance with System policy,” Sams wrote. That resulted in the cancellation of six courses that were found noncompliant with the new system policy, though “in most cases, courses were confirmed or adjusted within departments without the need for further review.”

Although Sams did not specify which six courses were canceled, earlier this month the university asked faculty to remove course content related to feminism, queer cinema and even the ancient Western philosopher Plato, among other topics. At least one sociology course, Introduction to Race and Ethnicity, was canceled right before this semester started.

“From banning Plato in one class to culling materials related to race and gender from syllabi, and now ending a well-established interdisciplinary program, TAMU is staking out turf as the epicenter of higher education censorship nationwide,” Amy Reid, program director of PEN America’s Freedom to Learn initiative, said in a statement. “Forcing faculty to restrict what they teach censors the knowledge accessible to students, paving the way for the American public university system to become a mouthpiece for the government. Limiting what can be taught in a university classroom is not education, it’s ideological control.”

Texas isn’t the only state that’s reviewing curricula and closing academic programs in an effort to limit discussions of race, gender, sexuality and other controversial topics on university campuses.

In 2023, New College of Florida’s trustees—including several appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, a frequent critic of higher education—voted to wind down the university’s gender studies program. And statewide, faculty at universities across Florida have also been subject to ongoing syllabus reviews to ensure compliance with laws that aim to align university teaching with conservative ideologies and viewpoints.

The Trump administration’s effort to use the problem of antisemitism on campuses as an excuse to bend universities to its will has been well documented. Reaching into its bag of tricks, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sent a subpoena to the University of Pennsylvania last July seeking the names of Jewish employees who’d filed complaints alleging antisemitism or discrimination based on religion or ancestry/national origin, as well as employees affiliated with its Jewish studies program, Jewish organizations or community events.

When the university refused, the EEOC filed a lawsuit. It asked a federal judge to enforce its subpoena.

It claimed to need the personal information about Penn’s Jewish employees to investigate claims that Penn engaged in “unlawful employment practices by allowing antisemitic harassment to persist and escalate throughout its Philadelphia campus and creating a hostile work environment for Jewish faculty and staff.”

On Jan. 20, Penn responded by calling the EEOC’s demand “extraordinary and unconstitutional.” It was right to do so.

As three University of Pennsylvania faculty members note in an op-ed in The Guardian, “If history teaches us anything, it is that making lists of Jews, no matter the ostensible purpose, is often a prelude to their and others’ persecution … Even if the EEOC is collecting Jewish community members’ personal data in a good-faith effort to ensure safety, lists of Jews can later be leaked, or deployed to other, more sinister ends.”

Such concerns seem particularly warranted at a time of rising levels of antisemitism and violent hate crimes against Jewish Americans. One recent survey found that “one-third (33 percent) of American Jews say they have been the personal target of antisemitism—in person or virtually—at least once over the last year.” Moreover, “Nearly six in 10 (56 percent) American Jews say they altered their behavior out of fear of antisemitism” in 2024.

In its suit, the EEOC said it is investigating “a pattern of antisemitic behavior that has been publicly displayed throughout Respondent’s campus.” It claimed that the list of Jewish employees would enable it to reach out to them: “Throughout its investigation, the EEOC has endeavored to locate employees exposed to this harassment and to identify other harassing events not noted by Respondent in its communications, but Respondent has refused to furnish this information, thereby hampering the EEOC’s investigation.”

But what the EEOC is offering, many Jewish employees at Penn do not want.

As the three Penn faculty members pointed out in their Guardian op-ed, “Jewish and non-Jewish community members at Penn and beyond have united to support the university’s resistance to compiling and releasing data about members of campus Jewish organizations, the Jewish studies department, and individuals who participated in confidential listening sessions and surveys about antisemitism.”

On Jan. 20, the Penn Faculty Alliance to Combat Antisemitism, an association whose membership consists predominantly of Jewish faculty, asked permission to file a friend-of-the-court brief opposing the EEOC’s effort. Their brief, which they appended to their request, pointed out that “disclosure of sensitive information about the members of Jewish organizations … burdens Jewish association rights, unintentionally echoing troubling attempts in both distant and recent history to single out and identify Jews—a historically persecuted minority.”

While expressing appreciation for the “EEOC’s concern regarding antisemitism on university campuses,” the alliance noted that by requesting lists of Jewish employees, the EEOC was “exacerbating the fear and uncertainty of Jewish faculty at Penn.” It called the EEOC’s subpoena “an ill-designed means for addressing workplace antisemitism, particularly because the agency could accomplish its goals in ways that would better protect the university’s Jewish faculty and staff, as well as their First Amendment rights.”

“Ill designed” is one way to put it, but more important is the point that Jewish faculty at Penn make about the burden on association rights and their fear. As for many Americans, that fear is in part based on mistrust of the Trump administration.

It is born of the administration’s growing record of disregard for constitutional rights and basic human dignity, and of its seeming willingness to do anything to accomplish its goals.

Almost 70 years ago, the United States Supreme Court made clear that the government cannot demand and force an organization to turn over its membership list absent a “compelling justification” for doing so. In NAACP v. Alabama (1958), the court found that Alabama’s request for the NAACP’s membership list “trespasses upon fundamental freedoms,” ruling that “the effect of compelled disclosure of the membership lists will be to abridge the rights of its rank-and-file members to engage in lawful association in support of their common beliefs. “

In that case, the court recognized what it called “the vital relationship between freedom to associate and privacy in one’s associations.”

The University of Pennsylvania, in its response to the EEOC lawsuit, says that the EEOC “seeks to invade employees’ private affairs and compel the disclosure of their associations without articulating any compelling interest justifying that serious burden on First Amendment rights.” It went on to say that “if the information demanded were somehow made public, the individuals identified on the lists could face real risk of antisemitic harm.”

And, similar to the case with the NAACP, Penn suggested that disclosure of membership in Jewish organizations “will have a substantial chilling effect on the association with Penn Jewish organizations and participation in Jewish life on campus.”

The EEOC’s effort to access such information is clearly unconstitutional. It is now up to the courts to stop that effort.

Florida took another step Thursday toward banning all its public universities from hiring foreign workers on H-1B visas.

The state university system’s Board of Governors will now take public comments for two weeks on a proposed prohibition on hiring any new employees on H-1Bs through Jan. 5 of next year. The vote from a committee to further the proposal was a voice vote, with no nays heard from any committee member. The proposal will come back to the full board for a vote after the public comment period ends.

If enacted, Florida would become the second state to ban the use of H-1B visas at public universities. Texas governor Greg Abbott announced a one-year freeze earlier this week—a move that prompted pushback from faculty.

The state bans come after President Trump placed a $100,000 fee on new H-1B visa applications in September (international workers who are already legal residents aren’t required to pay the fee). The next month, Florida governor Ron DeSantis ordered the state’s universities to “pull the plug on the use of these H-1B visas.” Fourteen of the Board of Governors’ 17 members are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate.

DeSantis complained about professors coming from China, “supposed Palestine” and elsewhere. He added that “we need to make sure our citizens here in Florida are first in line for job opportunities.”

Universities use the program to hire faculty, doctors and researchers and argue it’s required to meet needs in health care, engineering and other specialized occupations. Some conservatives contend that the program is being abused.

Discussion about the proposed ban lasted about 15 minutes Thursday, during which no committee member strongly advocated for the policy. Much of the time consisted of the board’s only faculty voting member and its only student voting member—neither of whom are members of the committee—reading off their objections to the move. Among their concerns: university system leaders’ plans to collect information on the H-1B program during the hiring moratorium, instead of collecting the data before making a decision.

Kimberly Dunn, chair of the statewide Advisory Council of Faculty Senates and the faculty board representative, said institutions and the university system “rely on the H-1B process to recruit world-class talent to our institutions.”

“Whether it is a pediatric cancer surgeon or a globally recognized researcher, these individuals directly contribute to Floridians’ health, safety and economic success,” Dunn said. “In many cases, the H-1B visa is the only viable pathway for bringing this level of expertise to our state.”

“Limiting our ability to recruit the very best talent in the world risks undermining the excellence that has positioned our system as a national leader,” Dunn added. She said the reputational damage from the ban could outlast the yearlong moratorium.

She urged the system to collect the data before pausing hiring new H-1B visa workers.

Carson Dale, Florida State University’s student body president and chair of the Florida Student Association, said he believes that “American taxpayer dollars should support hiring Americans whenever possible.”

“Where I part ways is with the mechanism chosen here,” Dale said. “This is not a neutral reform; it is a categorical restriction that determines who we are allowed to consider regardless of who is most qualified.”

He said the prohibition undermines Florida universities’ commitment to “merit” and goes against other actions that Florida has taken, including scaling back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives because “we believed they risked interfering with merit-based selection.”

“This regulation has the practical effect of excluding otherwise highly qualified candidates before individual merit can be assessed,” Dale said. “That matters because the labor market for advanced research talent is global.”

He said Trump’s $100,000 fee was already implemented “to deter overuse and protect U.S. workers.” He noted Elon Musk, along with other entrepreneurs, came to the U.S. from overseas.

“Top-tier candidates are not going to pause their careers to wait on a single state,” Dale said. “When Florida removes itself from consideration for an entire hiring cycle, those candidates accept offers elsewhere.”

Last fiscal year, according to a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services database, the federal government approved 253 H-1B visa holders to work at the University of Florida, about 110 each at Florida State University and the University of South Florida, 47 at the University of Central Florida, and smaller numbers at other public institutions.

Ray Rodrigues, the university system’s chancellor, told the committee that if the H-1B hiring pause is approved, his office and the universities “will be studying the cost of the H-1B program as well as how the program is used by our universities, including identifying the areas where the program is currently being used and whether those areas are of strategic need.”

He also said the study will look at whether employers have used the program to bring in employees who are “paid less than market wage.” He added that the system plans to work with universities to identify other areas that should be included in the study.

Alan Levine, chair of the Nomination and Governance Committee, which considered the proposal, appeared to acknowledge the issues that a blunt yearlong ban on H-1B hires could cause.

“I would encourage the universities—if an issue arises that’s unforeseen, particularly in areas like medical schools, faculty, engineering, where we have contracts with the Defense Department, things like that—where there’s issues that become an issue of concern for you, please bring those to the chancellor so that we can make a decision about how to address it,” Levine said. “We can always bring the group back together again if we need to.”

“Certainly there are physician shortages, and there’s needs particularly in high-acuity specialties in health care and medicine, and certainly there’s issues in certain STEM areas like engineering, so it’s understood,” Levine said. “The goal here is to collect information.”

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.”