Higher Ed Spotlight

As colleges and universities continue to debate the usefulness of admissions tests like the SAT, we talk to FairTest's Akil Bello. He argues that admissions tests aren't good indicators of student success and that the SAT has come to mean way more than it should within and outside of the walls of academia.   Higher Ed Spotlight is sponsored by Chegg's Center for Digital Learning and aims to explor...

Rachel Lipson is the co-editor of the new book "America's Hidden Economic Engines: How Community Colleges Can Drive Shared Prosperity." She shares what the five community colleges profiled in the book are getting right and how they're fulfilling the institution's promise of community economic growth and student career advancement. Higher Ed Spotlight is sponsored by Chegg's Center for Digital Lear...

After almost 30 years, incarcerated students are once again eligible to receive Pell Grants. It's a significant move with reverberations beyond prison. But providing college courses to incarcerated students isn't easy. Andrea Cantora, Director of the University of Baltimore's Second Chance College Program, sheds light on the importance of this move, the bipartisan shift it signals from punishment...

"Universities on Fire: Higher Education in the Climate Crisis" is a provocative new book by author and futurist Bryan Alexander. He believes academia is uniquely poised to be a key player in the climate change debate and that the time has come for academics to step outside of the ivory tower and influence the public conversation.   Higher Ed Spotlight is sponsored by Chegg's Center for Digital Lea...

A wide ranging interview with the new President of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), Valerie Sheares Ashby. We touch on the legacy she's inherited of inclusive excellence, what it takes to diversify STEM, and the challenges of leading a major state university in the current political climate.   Higher Ed Spotlight is sponsored by Chegg's Center for Digital Learning and aims to e...

Susan D. Blum is one of a growing number of educators questioning the role of grades in learning. She's a professor and the editor of "Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead)." She advocates for a sweeping pedagogical shift based on the practice of 'ungrading' - not assigning a number or letter value to a student's work.    Higher Ed Spotlight is sponsored by Ch...

The state of boys and men in higher education looks grim. That's one of the key takeaways from Brookings fellow Richard Reeves' latest book, "Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It." He discusses ways to help men and boys achieve equity in education, how focusing on men doesn't mean you don't care about women's equality, and how ignoring men's s...

Amit Sevak is the CEO of ETS - the leading testing organization behind the GRE and the College Board's SAT. While higher education grapples with the role of tests in admissions, Amit defends the importance of assessments as crucial learning tools in and beyond the classroom, while also arguing for revolutionizing what they look like today.   Higher Ed Spotlight is sponsored by Chegg's Center for D...

Sheila Sarem is the CEO and founder of Project Basta - an organization that builds the social capital of first generation graduates of color. Sheila argues that degrees aren't translating into good first jobs for some because of a gap in social capital - the invisible networks, information, and informal coaching that some students have access to and that others don't, depending on their background...

We get a sneak peak into education and workforce expert Ryan Craig's upcoming book, "Apprentice Nation." In it he argues that more and better apprenticeships, beyond the trades, will help narrow the opportunity gap in America. He also believes apprenticeships can work with higher education in innovative ways to help students thrive in their careers.   Higher Ed Spotlight is sponsored by Chegg's Ce...

Welcome back to Higher Ed Spotlight, a podcast about the big questions driving the future of higher education. In our second season, we continue to wade into major debates shaping higher education with the country's leading thinkers. Our biweekly podcast starts  March 28, 2023.   Hosted by veteran journalist and higher education policy expert Ben Wildavsky. Sponsored by Chegg's Center for Digital...

Even before the pandemic, campus mental health struggles were on the rise  – one 2021 study found 60% of undergrads met the bar for a psychological disorder. Nance Roy, the chief clinical officer at mental health organization, The Jed Foundation, explains why students are under more stress than ever, and why hiring more counselors is only a small part of the solution.    Higher Ed Spotlight is spo...

Despite more women attending – and graduating – college than men, the average American woman still earns just 83 cents to every dollar a man does. In her latest book, "Career and Family", economic historian Claudia Goldin says that, contrary to popular belief, discrimination doesn't actually explain the wage gap. And that unless the structure and culture of work shifts, wage inequality is unlikely...

With hundreds of thousands of alternative credentials on the market, but little data on how effective they are, how can students know which ones are worth their time? Sean Gallagher, the Director of the Center for the Future of Higher Education and Talent Strategy at Northeastern University, has spent years trying to answer that question. And while he thinks alternative credentials could be the ke...

When 48,000 grad students and other academic workers at the University of California went on strike, it garnered attention far beyond California and raised questions about the very structure of higher ed labor. Nelson Lichtenstein is a labor historian with a first-hand view of the UC strike, and he says what happened in California reflects bigger problems in an increasingly precarious workforce –...

Millions of students worldwide go abroad for higher education every year, and U.S. colleges have long been their top choice – but that may be under threat. International education expert Rajika Bhandari says the country's immigration policies often ignore what these students bring to the table: bolstering college bottom lines, diversifying classrooms, and building the economy. Rajika spoke to Ben...

Black and Latino student enrollment was hit particularly hard during the pandemic, and a lot of those students still haven't returned to campus. Angel Pérez, the CEO of the National Association for College Admission Counseling, says an affirmative action ban would make it even harder for colleges to maintain racial diversity. He sat down with Ben to map out a different way forward, and to explain...

With the Supreme Court considering two cases that could spell the end of affirmative action, many are worried about what that might mean for campus diversity. Author Richard Kahlenberg has been pushing for a different kind of affirmative action for years. He sat down with Ben to explain why he thinks using a socioeconomic lens, rather than a race based one, could actually make higher ed more acces...

The U.S. News and World Report college rankings have loomed large over American college choice for decades. And in that time they've been accused of being unreliable, skewing educational priorities, and perpetuating privilege. But in 2005, Washington Monthly introduced a different type of rankings. Ben sits down with editor in chief Paul Glastris to understand why he thinks the U.S. News rankings...

When Anant Agarwal founded edX, one of the world's most popular MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), he had a vision of making higher education accessible to everyone. Ten years later, Ben sits down with Anant to see just how far we've come, how new ideas like microcredentials fit into that vision, and whether or not Anant's decision to join forces with the for profit 2U was a threat to the MOOC e...

There's been a lot of debate about President Biden's plans to erase a portion of the $1.7 trillion in student debt. But most analysts agree on one thing: high college costs aren't going away. And while we figure out how to make college more affordable, economist Sandy Baum wants to ask an even more fundamental question: is college the "great equalizer" we often think it is? Ben sat down with Sandy...

Like a lot of things in 2022, campus speech issues are pretty divisive. Some think colleges are ruled by cancel culture mobs. Others see social justice values making universities more inclusive. Which means that the University of Austin – a new college centered around free-speech – was bound to get people talking. Its founding president, Pano Kanelos, sat down with Ben to explain how he plans on t...

When the pandemic hit, colleges and universities were thrust headfirst into the word of remote learning, sometimes with problematic results. But the Open University was more than ready – they'd been doing distance learning for more than 50 years. Ben sits down with Josie Fraser, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor at "the OU", to discuss how they've unlocked the full power of remote education. Higher Ed Sp...

Falling enrollment may be the most existential challenge faced by American colleges and universities today. There are nearly 10% fewer undergraduates than there were in 2010, and higher ed leaders are striving to reverse that trend. When Daniel Greenstein took over as chancellor of Pennsylvania's State System of Higher Education he inherited one of the most underfunded systems in the country – and...

Christine Cruzvergara is the Chief Education Strategy Officer at Handshake, an online platform that connects recent graduates to prospective employers. She sits down with Ben to discuss why the college to career pipeline is broken – and, more importantly, how to fix it. They look at why so many students feel lost after graduation, why traditional career centers aren't always up to the task of find...