Get the Daily Brief
Latest Higher Education News
Admissions data & race reporting after Supreme Court limits
Fewer applicants are reporting race and ethnicity on college applications following the Supreme Court’s 2023 rejection of affirmative action, according to Class Action’s “Known Unknowns” analysis....
H-1B cost shock tossed out by federal court
A federal judge on Monday vacated the Trump administration’s $100,000 fee for new H-1B visa petitions, ruling the administration exceeded its authority. The decision followed a lawsuit by...
Enrollment revenue model under strain at a public flagship
The University of Oregon’s long-running enrollment strategy—recruiting out-of-state students to support financial stability—is weakening, with expected fall 2026 domestic nonresident enrollment...
Board-and-leadership conflict reshapes campus governance
Michigan State University President Kevin Guskiewicz’s exit highlights intensifying friction between presidents and governing boards, with concerns that partisan or dysfunctional boards are...
Community colleges’ pathways to high-value workforce credentials
Brookings released a new research brief identifying practices used by “excelling” community colleges that produce workforce credentials of value—defined in the analysis as certificates worth at...
Cybersecurity weak spot: student readiness lags behind staff training
College technology leaders broadly feel positive about internal cybersecurity training, but experts warn that students remain a major vulnerability in higher education security posture. Reporting...
Teacher-prep curriculum still includes outdated reading instruction
A national review of reading in teacher preparation finds that while many programs have improved, a substantial portion still trains future teachers in discredited methods. The National Council on...
Higher ed grade policies intensify over A-capping at Harvard
Harvard faculty approved a policy capping the percentage of A grades in undergraduate courses to address grade compression and inflation. The change is intended to restore differentiation at the...
Research funding timelines face scrutiny in UKRI grant process
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is facing criticism over grant calls with extremely short application windows, which critics say place unfair pressure on university research offices and can...
Domestic and student AI adoption raises compliance questions
New survey research at the University of Chicago suggests AI usage among students may be difficult to measure accurately, raising stakes for campus policy enforcement. In an anonymous survey of...
Reading instruction in teacher prep under renewed scrutiny
A new national review from the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) finds that teacher-preparation programs are updating reading coursework, but gaps remain for scientifically supported...
Federal immigration policy hits H-1B costs and academic hiring
A federal judge struck down President Trump’s $100,000 fee for new H-1B visas, ruling the administration lacked authority to impose a tax-like charge on the visa program. The decision immediately...
Public flagship enrollment strategy cracks under nonresident reliance
The University of Oregon warned its Board of Trustees that a decades-long enrollment strategy built on out-of-state recruitment is now falling short. Expected fall 2026 domestic nonresident...
H-1B and international enrollment pressures reshape the academic pipeline
U.S. higher education is facing a sharper-than-expected drag on the international student pipeline, with new federal and institutional data showing international enrollment declines even before...
State court limits race-linked scholarship redesign
The Iowa Supreme Court ruled the University of Iowa cannot change endowed scholarship terms intended for Black students in the sciences. The university had sought to reframe eligibility after the...
University governance tensions intensify around presidential authority
Multiple pieces in the reporting package point to a widening governance conflict between university presidents and boards, with executive departures increasingly framed around trustees’ conduct....
Higher education wage pressures persist despite nominal raises
A new American Association of University Professors (AAUP) economic-status update finds faculty pay is still under pressure, with inflation outpacing nominal salary gains. The report says average...
Student admissions reporting shifts after affirmative action ruling
New analysis suggests fewer college applicants are reporting their race and ethnicity in the post-affirmative action environment. A report from Class Action, based on the “Known Unknowns” dataset,...
AI assessment integrity moves toward oral defenses of student work
Education scholars argue institutions should respond to AI-enabled submissions by changing assessment formats rather than relying solely on policing. One proposal is to preserve learning evidence...
AI agent governance and reliability risk for real-world deployments
Amazon Web Services researchers and leadership are warning that AI agents deployed in production can drift off task without adequate guardrails, with failures tied to more than model capability....