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  • A new path for supporting Black students in higher education

    A new path for supporting Black students in higher education


    National University President Mark D. Milliron, right,,congratulates a graduating student at the university’s 2023 commencement.

    Courtesy: National University

    In the year since the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision to end race-conscious college admissions, the predicted impact has become a troubling reality. Many selective universities are reporting significant decreases in Black student enrollment this fall. This latest development continues a broader trend of declining Black postsecondary enrollment, which since 2010 has fallen at all U.S. colleges by nearly 30%.

    These dire enrollment reports are emerging now as a growing number of states are eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion programs and services — and just four years after a nationwide reckoning on racial injustice. Whether colleges have become even more exclusive or if Black students are turning away from higher education, the results are the same: Our nation’s colleges and universities are becoming less diverse — and yet another barrier has been erected on the road toward increasing the number of Americans able to go to and graduate from college.

    Despite bleak national trend lines, the state of California has just enacted a creative policy solution that will shine a spotlight on institutions that excel in educating and serving Black students. Senate Bill 1348, also known as the “Designation of California Black-Serving Institutions Act,” creates a state-level designation (BSI) to recognize the state’s public and independent colleges and universities where at least 10% or 1,500 students are Black.

    The BSI designation is not just about enrollment numbers. It requires institutions to commit to providing essential services and resources to foster Black students’ academic success and meet their basic needs. For this reason, this proposal is a sound and logical policy prescription for California, which has the country’s fifth-largest population of Black people. It’s also a legislative innovation that other state and national policymakers should consider as American higher education is struggling to close completion and equity gaps and college demographics continue to grow more diverse.

    The BSI concept draws inspiration from the success of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) — postsecondary institutions established before 1965 with the principal mission of educating African or Black Americans. Today, the nation’s 107 HBCUs have an impressive track record. They have graduated 40% of the nation’s Black engineers, 50% of America’s black lawyers and 80% of Black judges. Perhaps more than any other institution in this country, HBCUs have helped create economic and social mobility for millions of Black Americans. 

    However, most HBCUs are at least 75 years old — the majority were established in the 19th century — and are rarely found outside the South. For newer colleges and universities outside the South that serve diverse populations, a BSI designation would strengthen institutions and communities in multiple ways. It would offer a state seal of approval to institutions that are committed to serving Black students and willing to hold themselves accountable for the results. It also would help policymakers identify colleges and universities to receive targeted financial support and other resources. 

    This shift is particularly relevant given the changing demographics of today’s college students. Nontraditional, working and military students are fast becoming the norm. A third of today’s undergraduates are 25 or older. A quarter of them are raising children. About 40% of full-time students — and three-quarters of part-time students — are working while they’re in school. Because so many students are older, working full-time or raising families, it’s essential that institutions adapt to this new reality by offering flexible schedules, stackable credentials and comprehensive support services. 

    The BSI designation could be a valuable tool for states beyond California. In states with substantial Black populations but few or no HBCUs (California has just one HBCU, Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science), it could help increase college access, improve completion rates and build a more skilled and educated workforce to fuel economic growth.

    California’s proposal to recognize Black-serving institutions is a necessary — and long overdue — step toward acknowledging their critical role in reversing the decline in Black student enrollment and increasing access to higher education for historically underserved communities. Just as HBCUs have broadened access to education, California’s Black-serving institutions bill will reward colleges and universities statewide that are doing the vital work of serving the underserved students our economy and society need. 

    By investing in institutions committed to supporting Black students and other underserved groups, states can help foster stronger, more inclusive colleges and universities. Ensuring that more Black learners are on track to access and complete higher education will help California and other states produce the talented and inclusive workforce they need to compete in today’s fast-changing economy.

    •••

    Mark D. Milliron, Ph.D, is president, National University, a nonprofit private university based in San Diego with campuses across California as well as online. Thomas Stewart, Ph.D, is executive vice president and co-chair of the Social Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Council, National University.

    The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the authors. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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  • Native American students miss school at higher rates. It only got worse during the pandemic

    Native American students miss school at higher rates. It only got worse during the pandemic


    Social worker Mary Schmauss, right, greets students as they arrive for school in October Algodones Elementary School in Algodones, New Mexico.

    Credit: Roberto E. Rosales / AP Photo

    After missing 40 days of school last year, Tommy Betom, 10, is on track this year for much better attendance. The importance of showing up has been stressed repeatedly at school — and at home.

    When he went to school last year, he often came home saying the teacher was picking on him and other kids were making fun of his clothes. But Tommy’s grandmother Ethel Marie Betom, who became one of his caregivers after his parents split, said she told him to choose his friends carefully and to behave in class.

    He needs to go to school for the sake of his future, she told him.

    “I didn’t have everything,” said Betom, an enrolled member of the San Carlos Apache tribe. Tommy attends school on the tribe’s reservation in southeastern Arizona. “You have everything. You have running water in the house, bathrooms and a running car.”

    A teacher and a truancy officer also reached out to Tommy’s family to address his attendance. He was one of many. Across the San Carlos Unified School District, 76% of students were chronically absent during the 2022-23 school year, meaning they missed 10% or more of the school year.

    Years after Covid-19 disrupted American schools, nearly every state is still struggling with attendance. But attendance has been worse for Native American and Alaska Native students — a disparity that existed before the pandemic and has since grown, according to data collected by The Associated Press.

    Out of 34 states with data available for the 2022-2023 school year, half had absenteeism rates for Native students that were at least 9 percentage points higher than the state average.

    Many schools serving Native American students have been working to strengthen connections with families who often struggle with higher rates of illness and poverty. Schools also must navigate distrust dating back to the U.S. government’s campaign to break up Native American culture, language and identity by forcing children into abusive boarding schools.

    History “may cause them to not see the investment in a public school education as a good use of their time,” said Dallas Pettigrew, director of Oklahoma University’s Center for Tribal Social Work and a member of the Cherokee Nation.

    With the vast majority of students at Algodones Elementary School in New Mexico residing at San Felipe Pueblo, the school and the Bernalillo school district are making efforts to turn that around the high rates of school absenteeism in Native American communities. Pictured are Kanette Yatsattie , 8 , left, and his classmate Jeremy Candelaria, 10, hanging out by a board depicting the race for best attendance at the school on Tuesday Oct. 1, 2024.
    Credit: Roberto E. Rosales / AP Photo

    On-site health, trauma care helped bring students back

    The San Carlos school system recently introduced care centers that partner with hospitals, dentists and food banks to provide services to students at multiple schools. The work is guided by cultural success coaches — school employees who help families address the kind of challenges that keep students from coming to school.

    Nearly 100% of students in the district are Native, and more than half of families have incomes below the federal poverty level. Many students come from homes that deal with alcoholism and drug abuse, Superintendent Deborah Dennison said.

    Students miss school for reasons ranging from anxiety to unstable living conditions, said Jason Jones, a cultural success coach at San Carlos High School and an enrolled member of the San Carlos Apache tribe. Acknowledging their fears, grief and trauma helps him connect with students, he said.

    “You feel better, you do better,” Jones said. “That’s our job here in the care center is to help the students feel better.”

    Jason Jones, cultural success coach and care center manager, talks about the care center at San Carlos High School on Aug. 27 in San Carlos, Arizona. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
    Credit: Credit: Ross D. Franklin / AP Photo
    The Rice Primary School Care Center in San Carlos, Arizona. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
    Credit: Ross D. Franklin / AP Photo

    In the 2023-2024 school year, the chronic absenteeism rate in the district fell from 76% to 59% — an improvement Dennison attributes partly to efforts to address their communities’ needs.

    “All these connections with the community and the tribe are what’s making a difference for us and making the school a system that fits them rather than something that has been forced upon them, like it has been for over a century of education in Indian Country,” said Dennison, a member of the Navajo Nation.

    In three states — Alaska, Nebraska, and South Dakota — the majority of Native American and Alaska Native students were chronically absent. In some states, it has continued to worsen, even while improving slightly for other students, as in Arizona, where chronic absenteeism for Native students rose from 22% in 2018-19 to 45% in 2022-23.

    AP’s analysis does not include data on schools managed by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Education, which are not run by traditional districts. Less than 10% of Native American students attend BIE schools.

    Schools close on days of Native ceremonial gatherings

    At Algodones Elementary School, which serves a handful of Native American pueblos along New Mexico’s Upper Rio Grande, about two-thirds of students are chronically absent.

    The communities were hit hard by Covid-19, with devastating impacts on elders. Since schools reopened, students have been slow to return. Excused absences for sick days are still piling up — in some cases, Principal Rosangela Montoya suspects, students are stressed about falling behind academically.

    Staff and tribal liaisons have been analyzing every absence and emphasizing connections with parents. By 10 a.m., telephone calls go out to the homes of absent students. Next steps include in-person meetings with those students’ parents.

    “There’s illness, there’s trauma,” Montoya said. “A lot of our grandparents are the ones raising the children so that the parents can be working.”

    About 95% of Algodones’ students are Native American, and the school strives to affirm their identity. It doesn’t open on four days set aside for Native American ceremonial gatherings, and students are excused for absences on other cultural days as designated by the nearby pueblos.

    Second grade teacher Lori Spina taking a photo of her class for her newsletter in October at Algodones Elementary School in Algodones, New Mexico. (AP Photo/Roberto E. Rosales)
    Credit: Roberto E. Rosales / AP Photo
    Principal Rosangela Montoya waves goodbye to parents as students arrive at Algodones Elementary School in Algodones, New .Mexico. (AP Photo/Roberto E. Rosales)
    Credit: Roberto E. Rosales / AP Photo
    With the vast majority of students at Algodones Elementary School in New Mexico residing at San Felipe Pueblo, the school and the Bernalillo school district are making efforts to turn around the high rates of school absenteeism in Native American communities. Pictured is a third grade class in October.
    Credit: Ross D. Franklin / AP Photo

    For Jennifer Tenorio, it makes a difference that the school offers classes in the family’s native language of Keres. She speaks Keres at home, but says that’s not always enough to instill fluency.

    Tenorio said her two oldest children, now in their 20s, were discouraged from speaking Keres when they were in the federal Head Start educational program — a system that now promotes native language preservation — and they struggled academically.

    “It was sad to see with my own eyes,” said Tenorio, a single parent and administrative assistant who has used the school’s food bank. “In Algodones, I saw a big difference to where the teachers were really there for the students, and for all the kids, to help them learn.”

    Over a lunch of strawberry milk and enchiladas on a recent school day, her 8-year-old son, Cameron Tenorio, said he likes math and wants to be a policeman.

    “He’s inspired,” Tenorio said. “He tells me every day what he learns.”

    Home visits change perception of school

    Velma Kitcheyan, a third grade teacher at Rice Intermediate School, instructs her students in San Carlos, Arizona. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
    Credit: Ross D. Franklin / AP Photo
    Rice Intermediate School Principal Nicholas Ferro walks to a classroom at Rice Intermediate School in San Carlos, Arizona.
    Credit: Ross D. Franklin / AP Photo

    In Arizona, Rice Intermediate School Principal Nicholas Ferro said better communication with families, including Tommy Betom’s, has helped improve attendance. Since many parents are without working phones, he said, that often means home visits.

    Lillian Curtis said she was impressed by Rice Intermediate’s student activities on family night. Her granddaughter, Brylee Lupe, 10, missed 10 days of school by mid-October last year but had missed just two days by the same time this year.

    “The kids always want to go — they are anxious to go to school now. And Brylee is much more excited,” said Curtis, who takes care of her grandchildren.

    Curtis said she tells Brylee that skipping school is not an option.

    “I just told her that you need to be in school, because who is going to be supporting you?” Curtis said. “You’ve got to do it on your own. You got to make something of yourself.”

    The district has made gains because it is changing the perception of school and what it can offer, said Dennison, the superintendent. Its efforts have helped not just with attendance but also morale, especially at the high school, she said.

    “Education was a weapon for the U.S. government back in the past,” she said. “We work to decolonize our school system.”

    Lee reported from Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Lurye reported from New Orleans. Alia Wong of The Associated Press and Felix Clary of ICT contributed to this report.





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  • CTA chapters band together to leverage districts for higher pay, smaller classes, more resources

    CTA chapters band together to leverage districts for higher pay, smaller classes, more resources


    A group of Bay Area teacher unions rally outside Oakland City Hall on Feb. 4, 2025, demanding fully staffed schools, better wages, more resources, smaller class sizes, and safety improvements.

    Credit: Monica Velez / EdSource

    A California Teachers Association campaign is uniting teachers in 32 school districts to leverage their administrations for higher pay and benefits, smaller class sizes, and mental health support and other resources for students.

    The school districts, from San Diego to Sacramento, employ 77,000 teachers and serve 1 million students. 

    The “We Can’t Wait” campaign, launched during a webinar Tuesday, will offer a united platform that CTA President David Goldberg said will build broader pressure statewide. 

    “That’s never happened before across districts,” Goldberg said during the webinar. “They (the chapters) believe that can force change now, and together we’re demanding that every school district prioritize fully staffed schools, competitive wages and benefits to recruit and retain quality educators, and safe and stable schools where every child can learn and thrive.”

    The CTA represents 310,000 of the state’s educators, including teachers, nurses, counselors, psychologists, librarians, education support professionals and some higher education faculty and staff. 

    The collaboration includes some of the state’s largest school districts, including Los Angeles Unified, San Diego Unified, San Francisco Unified, Oakland Unified and Sacramento Unified.

    Participating union chapters from 10 of the largest districts have contracts expiring on June 30, according to California Teachers Association leaders. The other districts have contracts expiring near that time. While union chapters aren’t permitted to bargain across school districts, the multiyear campaign allows them to support one another, Goldberg said.

    In Sacramento County, for example, three of the larger school districts are part of the coalition. That means all three districts would be negotiating contracts with their unions at about the same time, and — if all three fail to come to an agreement — could ultimately end up at an impasse or even with strikes, all at the same time.

    Union locals held rallies across the state to celebrate the campaign. At a rally of Bay Area educators in Oakland on Tuesday afternoon, the crowd of more than 100 chanted “We Can’t Wait” in the pouring rain. Students, teachers and politicians spoke about the need to keep schools open, increase teacher pay and add resources for students.

    A group of Bay Area teacher unions rally outside Oakland City Hall on Feb. 4, 2025, demanding fully staffed schools, better wages, more resources, smaller class sizes, and safety improvements.
    Credit: Monica Velez / EdSource

    “We see the impact that understaffing has on our teachers and on our classmates when we don’t have enough teachers to cover classes to the point classes are cut,” Skyline High School student Ra’Maur Cash said. “It makes me so sad because so many of our students at our schools love the class that they go to, and when we don’t have enough teachers to teach those classes, classes were cut.”

    U.S. Rep. Lateefah Simon, who represents Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda and surrounding cities, didn’t attend the rally, but an aide read her statement, which said she stands in solidarity with rallying Bay Area educators.

    “Now is the time to act,” Simon wrote. “We must demand fully funded, well-staffed schools where teachers thrive and students succeed. The future of our children depends on it. Together, we will secure a brighter, more equitable future for every child in America.”

    California teacher pay isn’t keeping up with inflation or the cost of housing, CTA leaders said in the webinar, citing “California Teacher Pay: Decades of Falling Behind,” research by Sylvia Allegretto from the Center for Economic and Policy research based in Washington, D.C. 

    The pay gap between teachers and other professionals with similar educations has widened for four decades, according to the research.

    “That really influences the teacher shortages, the retaining of current teachers, the recruitment of future teachers into the profession,” Allegretto said at the webinar. “And here in California … the high cost of living is a serious problem. The complexity of these challenges calls for a massive coordinated effort.”

    California teachers have the highest average pay in the nation, compared with teachers in other states, according to National Education Association (NEA) data that does not factor in the cost of living.

    In 2024, the average starting salary for a California teacher was $55,283 and the average salary was $95,160, according to the NEA.

    The high cost of living in California, especially the cost of housing and health care, still keeps many teachers from meeting their most basic needs, Goldberg said when asked about the NEA data.

    “We are facing a crisis in our public schools,” Goldberg said. “There are not enough educators on our school campuses. California ranks in the bottom five of states for class-size ratio. We rank 48th in the nation for access to school counselors. The resources we do have are constantly under attack.”

    Local union chapter leaders plan to approach school district administrators in the coming weeks to begin bargaining, according to CTA leaders. 

    By aligning their contracts, the unions are raising awareness in the major metro areas of the need to invest in schools, said Ken Jacobs, senior policy adviser at the UC Berkeley Labor Center. 

    “CTA is correct to say this is unprecedented for teachers’ unions,” Jacobs told EdSource. “We have seen success in private sector unions aligning contracts across regions. The best recent example is UNITE HERE locals successfully carrying out coordinated hotel strikes around the country.”

    But how will districts afford raises and other increased costs when some are inching closer to the fiscal cliff and considering buyouts, layoffs or school closures?

    “It is really a matter of priorities,” said Kampala Taiz-Rancifer, president of the Oakland Education Association.

    Oakland Unified’s school board is considering merging schools and making other cuts to close budget deficits, but Taiz-Rancifer said the district has the resources to keep schools open and to put teachers and other resources in the classroom. 

    Parent and executive director of Parent Voices Oakland, Clarissa Doutherd, who was at the rally in Oakland Tuesday afternoon, agrees.

    “When underfunding leads to the threats of budget cuts and closures … that jeopardizes our school communities,” Doutherd said. “When we unite across the Bay Area and across California to demand that districts prioritize spending that directly impacts our children and our schools, so that our kids have stability, so that our kids have fully staffed schools that aren’t in threat of closure every single other year.”





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  • Make climate literacy a gen ed requirement across higher ed — before it’s too late

    Make climate literacy a gen ed requirement across higher ed — before it’s too late


    Local and state officials in mid-March piled 50,000 sandbags along the low-lying banks of the San Joaquin River when rising levels threatened to overtake Firebaugh.

    Emma Gallegos/EdSource

    Earlier this year, students across the country watched as wildfires devastated large parts of southern California. Yet even as they watched — and, in some cases, lived through — a very real example of what climate change can look like, many students don’t have a good understanding of why events like these are happening more frequently and with greater intensity. Without that foundational knowledge, they are ill-equipped to help mitigate the problem that is impacting their generation so significantly. Lack of climate literacy is a crisis — one that higher education has a responsibility to address.

    Acknowledging the problem is no longer enough. Although 72% of U.S. adults recognize that our climate is changing, only 58% acknowledge that it is human-caused and even fewer understand the scientific consensus — that over 97% of climate scientists affirm our role in the ever-warming planet. We need a climate-literate electorate if we want to drive effective climate action because the solutions we choose to support are based on our individual understanding of the problem. To do this, we need to make climate education part of general education. And we must move quickly.

    Many students know what is coming. Rising climate anxiety among 16–25 year-olds is telling but disempowering if they aren’t prepared to meet the moment because they hold misconceptions about the root causes. In a 2021 survey, students 14-18 years old overwhelmingly reported that climate change was real and human-caused, but follow-up questions showed large gaps between their conceptualization of Earth’s interrelated systems and reality. They also vastly underestimated the scientific consensus.

    These gaps in knowledge make sense: when climate change is taught in middle and high school classrooms, nearly one-third of science teachers are sending mixed messages about the cause, often because they themselves were never introduced to the subject during their higher education experience. Prioritizing climate literacy as part of general education at colleges and universities would reduce the perpetuation of these false narratives. 

    Ideally, institutions would offer multi-dimensional climate education for all students; realistically, the pace of climate change far outstrips the pace of change in higher education. However, a general education requirement for climate literacy is possible — and necessary. These central concepts do not rely on additional college-level coursework, making a first- or second-year course on the topic accessible to students in any major.

    Given the monumental challenge before us and what the best physical science tells us we are headed toward (e.g. heat waves, sea level rise, drought and more), it would be easy to put together a fairly depressing curriculum. A solutions-focused approach to climate education is not only kinder to our young people, but also cuts against the temptation to spread anxiety. It’s easy to miss out on the momentum building in the clean energy sector, the climate leadership of local communities, and international efforts to build climate resilience. Resources like Project Drawdown and the Solutions Journalism Network can provide curricular materials that remind students that they are not alone, and that they are not starting from square one. 

    Additionally, we need students to understand that policy, psychology, and art are just as important at shifting our trajectory as atmospheric science and clean energy technology. In this way, we make room for every student in the climate movement, no matter their professional aspirations. At Harvey Mudd College, we have developed a course to help students think critically about the impact of their work on society through an interdisciplinary look at the climate-fueled challenge of fire in the North American west. Our teaching team is intentionally broad, so we can cover California’s legacy of fire suppression, the depictions of nature in media, and the religious roots of environmental attitudes, as well as fire ecology and the greenhouse effect. While we do lay the groundwork for understanding the problem, fully 50% of the course is dedicated to analyzing proposed or current interventions.

    In addition to a solutions-focused curriculum, basic climate education also needs to prepare students emotionally and mentally to keep engaging in the work. Nearly 60% of respondents in a recent global survey of youth indicated “extreme worry” about climate change. Considering students’ emotions doesn’t mean we shy away from hard truths — that would not serve our students well and undermine their trust in faculty. In fact, those hard truths can tap into students’ deeper motivations for learning, so long as we also help them build emotional resilience through reflection. Programs like the All We Can Save Project can offer resources and even course materials. And efforts to wrap this “affective approach” into climate education are already underway, as with the Faculty Learning  Community in Teaching Climate Change and Resilience at California State University in Chico. 

    The world is currently on track for nearly twice the rise in global average temperature that leading climate experts warn is safe. The kind of climate education we need is appearing, but not at the scale or speed required. Higher education leaders must prioritize climate literacy by integrating climate education into the general curriculum. Institutions must ensure students are prepared academically, socially, and emotionally to address climate change. We need empowered graduates who have both climate knowledge and a solutions-focused mindset in uncertain times. Their world literally depends on it. 

    •••

    Lelia Hawkins is a professor of chemistry and the Hixon Professor of Climate Studies at Harvey Mudd College. She is currently serving as the Director of the Hixon Center for Climate and the Environment, a new program expanding climate education for Mudd’s scientists and engineers. 

    The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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  • Expert Insights Into the 2024 Higher Education Landscape

    Expert Insights Into the 2024 Higher Education Landscape


    May 22
    2024

    Expert Insights Into the 2024 Higher Education Landscape

    Modern Campus Launches Personalization Engine for Higher Education ...

    As we step into the mid-way point in 2024, the higher education industry is bracing for a wave of transformative changes. Below, several experts from higher education tech company Modern Campus collectively paint a future where traditional educational models are rapidly evolving. The burgeoning adoption of microcredentials promises a more flexible and competency-based learning landscape, tailored to meet the ever-changing needs of the workforce. Higher education institutions are expected to pivot significantly, focusing more on aligning their offerings with industry requirements and enhancing the overall student experience.

    Peter DeVries, CEO

    • AI will continue to be a hot topic with a disconnect between the institution’s hesitancy and intent to drive efficiency versus student’s usage whenever an opportunity exists.
    • Microcredentials and stackable credentials will continue to be held up as a key area of innovation with slow demonstration of how it can be readily utilized by students due to institution inertia.
    • Students will continue to look for institutions that provide a modern engagement experience with personalization and value add services available seamlessly through online services.

    Amrit Ahluwalia, Senior Director of Strategic Insights

    • Microcredential adoption will continue to accelerate: More colleges and universities will offer a wider range of microcredentials to provide alternatives for people to engage in meaningful learning without forcing them to enroll in a full degree program. This will also drive increased adoption of competency-based learning models.
    • Higher ed will align more closely with the workforce: Colleges and universities will work to align offerings more closely to workforce needs, creating pathways for adults to engage in professional development to keep pace with industry changes while also streamlining the learner-to-earner pathway for degree-seeking students.
    • Colleges and universities will prioritize the student experience: To stem growing stop-out and drop-out numbers, higher ed institutions will begin to invest in mechanisms to improve student belonging and communication and will look for approaches to accelerate degree completion.
    • IT leaders will play a more strategic role: Historically, institutional IT leaders have played a largely operational role. But as technology plays an increasingly central role in the management of the modern postsecondary institution, these leaders will be asked to have a larger influence on the strategy and direction of their respective institutions. This will have a significant impact on higher education’s approach to customer/student engagement, leveraging/securing data, and software management.
    • Institutional IT leaders will be looking to address the “Digital Jungle” of software and vendors operating on their campuses. During the pandemic, colleges invested in massive numbers of disconnected and overlapping technology tools to deliver on specific needs through a challenging time. But now that we’re on the other side, CIOs and CISOs will be looking for ways to reduce the risk associated with having so many tech vendors operating simultaneously on campus, improving data security and simplifying the institutional tech infrastructure.

    Keith Renneker, VP Sales for Modern Campus Connected Curriculum and Modern Campus CMS

    • AI will continue to be a hot button topic – how to leverage in education delivery, impact on research, recruitment and engagement of students – essentially the whole education ecosystem.
    • Financial survival – while some schools have been able to thrive, others continue to struggle, with Birmingham Southern the most recent example of a school trying to avoid closure.  What will be the impact on affordability for students?  Will campuses close or merge?  Budget scrutiny will continue to slow and formalize more procurement processes.
    • A more politicized environment with government seemingly more engaged from the K-12 environment into higher ed – a leading example is loan forgiveness. Schools will be challenged with strong public views on political topics, creating risks for schools and including impact to donors.
    • Greater efforts on campuses for increased efficiency – platform solutions vs multi-vendor.  Continued call for services – for school and students.  Modernizing the experience for the learner.  Stronger tools to integrate different campus solutions from different providers.

    David Cashwell, VP Sales for Modern Campus Lifelong Learning

    • More centralization of CE programs in universities.  For example, School of Education, School of Business, etc.  They are sharing resources more, and that includes software.
    • Defining microcredential quality standards – this has become a more important issue with the American Council of Education, who oversees accreditation.
    • The Definition of FTE has become problematic because such a high percentage of full-time students are on financial aid and many “part time” students are paying in full. The question remains as to whether Pell dollars will be usable for students seeking a short-term job training program.
    • The higher ed institutions that are not well-endowed and who struggle with enrollments will be more deliberate about creating career pathways for their students. This will not be an issue for the most prestigious R1 universities who have 20% and below acceptance rates.
    • Institutions will be more focused on programs and marketing that focus on the stop out population through degree and non-degree programs. They will look to these populations as a supplement to the shortage in traditional demographics.
    • CIOs will continue to prefer purpose-built platforms that will play nicely within ecosystems. This shift in purpose-built solutions will be great for those that provide them assuming they can seamlessly integrate into “main campus” systems.
    • LMS providers will continue their momentum on combining with other solutions or building extensions of their LMS systems (see Instructure, Anthology (bB) and D2L). This will allow them to differentiate from each other outside of traditional “bake off” differentiators.
    • Institutions will continue to tighten up their security requirements. Universities have no regulations so it’s a big chance for cybersecurity in organizations.

    Andy Gould, VP Sales for Modern Campus Student Engagement Suite

    • Retention efforts/funding will redirect to enrollment support in the face of continued enrollment decline, which will put effective student engagement at further risk.
    • Students will continue to demand more mobile-focused, interconnected, and personalized technologies be a part of their experience.
    • Soft skill development/articulation demand will increase as employers reduce forces, putting pressure on recruiting high quality new graduates.
    • Academic support will receive increased pressure and existing technologies are in need of modernization. Products like TEDU will see quick adoption.
    • Centralized student platforms like Pathify will gain increased traction as institutions and students alike face technology overload and more demand for a personalized experience.

    Chad Rowe, VP Product for Modern Campus Lifelong Learning

    • Continuation of the rise and adoption of alternative credentials including digital badges.
    • Tighter integration of CE focused student information systems with customer relationship management systems to promote student engagement throughout their journey and lifetime.
    • Adoption of new tools and integration connectors to improve the student experience; tighter integrations between the CE-focused student information systems and the main campus SIS for more engaging catalog display.
    • Cautious exploration of AI use cases in the administration, reporting and predictive analytics or CE programs.

    Kim Prieto, SVP Product

    • As enrollments continue to decline, and budgets are stretched, institutions will work to meet students where they are at:
      • Continued and growing focus on micro-credentialing
      • Support of online and hybrid programs
      • Communicating clear paths to post school employment
    • As the costs of education rises, community colleges will see higher growth than 4-year institutions, increasing the need for clear and easy transfer paths.
    • Campuses will look to gain efficiencies in their vendor management – looking more for platform vendors who can fulfill multiple needs.

    From the accelerated adoption of microcredentials to the strategic role of IT leaders, and from the integration of AI to the focus on student engagement, these changes reflect a broader shift in educational priorities and methodologies. Higher education institutions must adapt to these changes, balancing innovation with the enduring values of accessibility and quality education. In doing so, they will not only meet the evolving needs of students and the workforce but also lead the way in shaping a future where education is more adaptable, inclusive, and aligned with the ever-changing global landscape.



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