The Key with Inside Higher Ed

In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Inside Higher Ed's podcast series exploring what really shapes students' experiences, Christa Acampora, dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences at the University of Virginia, joins IHE student success reporter Joshua Bay. As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly embedded in higher education and the workforce, colleges and...

Universities and colleges own the discoveries they make with federal research funding thanks to the Bayh-Dole Act. Since it passed in 1980, commercialized innovations from federally funded research have contributed trillions of dollars to the U.S. economy, according to the Bayh-Dole Coalition. Some of the discoveries made possible by the Bayh-Dole act include Google, tests for cervical cancer, lit...

In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Inside Higher Ed's podcast series exploring what really shapes students' experiences, Félix Matos Rodríguez, chancellor of the City University of New York, joins IHE student success reporter Joshua Bay. As students and families increasingly question the value of a college education amid an uncertain job market, institutions are placing greater emphasis...

In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Inside Higher Ed's podcast series exploring what really shapes students' experiences, Alexis Redding, a developmental psychologist and professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, joins IHE student success reporter Joshua Bay. Colleges have devoted growing attention and resources to student well-being in recent years, but supporting mental he...

In their new book, Faculties: A Dialogue on Inciting Constructive Change in Destructive Times (Duke University Press) Cathy Davidson, founder of the Futures Initiative at the CUNY Graduate Center, and Jody Greene, founding director of the Teaching and Learning Center at UC Santa Cruz, call on faculty to get involved in the decisions shaping their institutions' futures. They join Inside Higher Ed e...

In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Inside Higher Ed's podcast series exploring what really shapes students' experiences, Bryan Ashton, chief strategy and growth officer at Trellis and head of Trellis Strategies, joins IHE student success reporter Joshua Bay. Adult learners, working students, student parents, transfer students and first-generation students are often grouped under the bro...

The Department of Education in August released its accreditation reform for public comment. If finalized, the new rules could expand accreditors’ responsibilities  to include policing First Amendment compliance and research misconduct. They could also force many agencies to set more specific standards for student achievement and hiring and to rethink their decades-old peer-review model. In this ep...

In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Inside Higher Ed's podcast series exploring what really shapes students' experiences, Hope Pacheco, associate dean of students and executive director of the Gator Resource Center at the University of Houston–Downtown, joins IHE student success reporter Joshua Bay. Being the first in your family to attend college can mean entering an unfamiliar system w...

Paul LeBlanc is an innovative change maker in higher ed who led Southern New Hampshire University’s transformation from a small regional institution with a couple thousand students to one of the largest nonprofit providers of online higher education in the country.  In his latest book Reclaiming Purpose: The University in an AI World he presents a vision of higher education that shifts from knowle...

In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Inside Higher Ed's podcast series exploring what really shapes students' experiences, Josh Wyner, executive director of the College Excellence Program at the Aspen Institute, and John Fink, senior research associate and program lead at the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University, joins IHE student success reporter Jos...

Inside Higher Ed’s news editor Katherine Knott is back on The Key with editor in chief Sara Custer to analyze the latest developments from the White House. On deck: The education secretary’s call to higher ed leaders to commit to series of priorities she says will "revitalize" higher education; the Department of Homeland Security’s new regulations limiting the length of international student visas...

In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Inside Higher Ed’s podcast series exploring what really shapes students’ experiences, Nicole Lynn Lewis, founder and chief executive officer of Generation Hope, joins IHE’s student success reporter, Joshua Bay. From finding affordable childcare and stable housing to navigating time poverty, financial insecurity and questions of belonging, student paren...

Venu Govindaraju is the senior vice president for research, innovation and economic development and a distinguished professor at the University at Buffalo. He's spent more than 30 years working in AI, building systems with real social impact — and he's also a poet, with a simple way of describing why the humanities still matter: AI finds the patterns. The humanities find the meaning behind them. I...

In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Inside Higher Ed’s podcast series exploring what really shapes students’ experiences, Terah Crews, chief executive officer of ReUp Education, joins IHE’s student success reporter, Joshua Bay. While many students stop out before earning a credential, often they plan to return. Yet reenrolling can prove just as challenging as enrolling in the first place...

This episode features an Inside Higher Ed newsroom discussion about a five-part series on registered apprenticeships. Underwritten by Ascendium, the six-month project saw the team battling hailstorms in Missouri, visiting factories in upstate New York and embedding themselves with learners on the job in South Carolina. What emerged is a clear picture of the American apprenticeship, distinct from d...

In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Inside Higher Ed’s podcast series exploring what really shapes students’ experiences, Sara Weissman, senior reporter at IHE, joins student success reporter, Joshua Bay. For generations, colleges were largely designed around the idea of an 18-year-old who enrolled straight out of high school, attended full time and followed a relatively linear path to g...

IHE editor in chief Sara Custer speaks with Devin Duncan, the student body president at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an incoming junior.  Duncan is passionate about making higher ed a better place for the next generation of students and wants to see colleges do more to support students’ complex needs. In this episode, he shares his thoughts about free speech on campus, tenur...

As we approach the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, an old historical narrative of American exceptionalism is taking hold. Meanwhile, evidence-based historical research is disappearing. The federal government has shuttered museum exhibits, politicized federal funding and removed any monuments seen to disparage Americans past or present.  In this episode of The K...

An update on the higher ed headlines from Inside Higher Ed's newsroom.  Inside Higher Ed’s editor in chief Sara Custer and news editor Katherine Knott discuss the latest higher ed headlines: the proposals to change accreditation, the latest from the Office for Civil Rights, the GOP’s plan to plug the hole in Pell grant funding and how the administration is redirecting grants that support low-incom...

In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Inside Higher Ed’s podcast series exploring what really shapes students’ experiences, Zoe Ragouzeos, vice president for student mental health and wellbeing at New York University, joins IHE’s student success reporter, Joshua Bay. As institutions face growing demand for mental health support, rising rates of loneliness and new questions about where stud...

In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Inside Higher Ed’s podcast series exploring what really shapes students’ experiences, Alison Lee, chief research and development officer of The Rithm Project, joins IHE’s student success reporter, Joshua Bay. As colleges struggle to meet growing mental health needs, they explore how more young people are opening up to chatbots and conversational AI too...

Policy makers and higher ed institutions have worked to provide better opportunities and resources for underserved communities, but access to affordable education and supports for rural students remains challenging. Meanwhile, threats to federal funding for TRIO programs could make it even harder for rural students to get into college and when they get on campus, few institutions understand their...

In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Inside Higher Ed’s podcast series exploring what really shapes students’ experiences, Carson Domey, a fourth-year student at the University of Texas at Austin, and Adaora Lee, a graduate student at Meharry Medical College, joins IHE’s student success reporter, Joshua Bay. They discuss student loneliness and what social isolation looks like in a post-pa...

In this episode of The Key, we’re digging into the minds of college presidents and how they’re dealing with the chaos of the current moment. Colleen Flaherty, Inside Higher Ed’s special content editor joins editor in chief Sara Custer to share some key findings from IHE’s 2026 survey of college and university presidents on what leaders see are the immediate and long-term risks to their institution...

In this episode of Voices of Student Success, Inside Higher Ed’s podcast series exploring what really shapes students’ experiences, Dr. Katie Hurley, vice president of community initiatives at The Jed Foundation (JED), joins IHE's student success reporter Joshua Bay. They discuss the state of student mental health on college campuses, including what's driving increased demand for support, how coun...