The Key with Inside Higher Ed

Some experts think competency-based learning could get a boost amid the pandemic, in part because of the flexibility CBE programs offer to students. To get the lay of the land, we spoke with Charla Long , executive director of the Competency-Based Education Network (C-BEN), a national consortium of colleges and systems. Long talked about the outlook for CBE and what might take it to the next level...

A growing body of evidence finds high student anxiety and uncertainty about what comes after college. To get a better sense of how students are feeling, we spoke with Livia and Julia Morris, recent UC Davis grads who conducted a survey of college students around the country. The survey featured questions about career exploration. We also spoke with Kai Drekmeier, the founder and chief development...

Student transfer is down this fall, with new data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center showing the anticipated influx of students transferring to community colleges from four-year institutions didn't happen. To make sense of these numbers, we spoke Iris Palmer , a senior advisor for higher education and workforce with the education policy program at New America. Palmer talked ab...

As higher education faces a potential exodus of students -- particularly lower-income students who attend community colleges -- what role could creative financing play in helping students bridge the gap from college to a career? Chris Keaveney thinks Meritize can be part of solution. The private lender focuses on reducing risk and friction for students, colleges and employers. Keaveney, the founde...

A growing body of research has shown that anxiety and mental health issues have become primary concerns for college students. To get a leadership perspective on this challenge, we spoke with Elfred Anthony Pinkard , the president of Wilberforce University, who talked about how his students have been coping with the nation's racial reckoning as well as the pandemic. We also spoke with Dr. Alan Denn...

Amid fears about a possible exodus of lower-income students from postsecondary education, and community colleges in particular, what can policymakers do to help vulnerable students stay on track? For answers, we spoke with Morna Foy , president of the Wisconsin Technical College System. Foy spoke about barriers faced by students across the system and why she and other two-year college leaders want...

The pandemic has brought new urgency to the creation of a learner record system, which could help students more smoothly transfer between colleges and find a job. We spoke with Scott Cheney , the CEO of Credential Engine, to hear about the potential for such a system, as well as how his organization is seeking to bring transparency to credentials while creating a marketplace for them. Also feature...

The College of Health Care Professions is the largest producer of allied health graduates in Texas. Most of its students are Latino, Black and from lower-incomes backgrounds. We spoke with Eric Bing , CHCP's CEO, to hear how the college and its students are holding up during the pandemic. Bing talked about how the college has designed its credentials to be stackable, and how higher education can b...

Community colleges and their students are wrestling with plenty of challenges this fall, including obstacles related to affordability, childcare and the digital divide. We spoke with two community college leaders to hear what their institutions are doing to help keep students on track. Sue Ellspermann is president of Ivy Tech Community College, Indiana's statewide two-year system. She spoke about...

Amid growing evidence the pandemic and recession are worsening equity gaps , Excelencia in Education last month released an analysis on Latino representation in higher education, as well as on degree attainment and completion rates. We spoke with Deborah Santiago , Excelencia's co-founder and CEO, about the report's findings and to hear about key data points it identified. She also spoke about wha...

Consumers and employers increasingly are turning to short-term, online alternatives to the college degree , and alternative credential pathways are projected to grow in popularity. To help make sense of this complex issue, we spoke with Paul Freedman , a veteran of innovations in online education and president of the Learning Marketplace at Guild Education, a major player in employer-connected onl...

Earlier this month the University of Arizona announced a deal to acquire Ashford University, a fully online, for-profit institution enrolling roughly 35,000 students. The arrangement, which in some ways resembles Purdue University's 2017 acquisition of Kaplan University, quickly drew lots of attention, and controversy . To help make sense of the news, we spoke with Kelly McManus , director of high...

Michael Yarbrough, an assistant professor of law and society at the City University of New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and his students in a senior colloquium this spring documented the pandemic's impact on CUNY, students in the class and their families. Marjorie Valbrun, a senior editor at Inside Higher Ed, wrote about the group project. And Yarbough wrote about it in a powerful...

Many colleges were facing financial pressure before the pandemic. But the crisis has exacerbated those challenges and stoked more questions about the sustainability of colleges with shaky finances.   Nick Ducoff is cofounder and CEO of Edmit , a college financial education company. He has weighed in on this issue with projections of when private colleges are likely to run out of money. We spoke wi...

Many questions loom about remote learning in coming months. Will online offerings from colleges be more sophisticated? What steps need to be taken to ensure academic quality in online learning? And will short-term credentials be more popular?   To get some answers to these tricky questions, we spoke with Lori Williams , president and CEO of NC-SARA. Williams discussed ideas from an opinion piece s...

In roughly a month, many colleges and universities are planning to welcome back students to campus-based learning. But surging COVID-19 cases across much of the country have kept college administrators busy adjusting their plans. The University of Kentucky this spring brought together more than 500 people to create its 187-page " Playbook for Reinvented Operations ." The flagship public university...

The pandemic has exposed and worsened equity gaps in higher education, as its impacts have been felt most by Black, Latino and lower-income Americans. What policies and incentives could help close those gaps? To help grasp the scope of the challenge, we spoke with Michelle Asha Cooper, president of the Institute for Higher Education Policy, a nonpartisan research and policy group. Cooper talked ab...

A steep decline in enrollments of international students is among the wide range of possible disruptions U.S. colleges face this fall. To get an entrepreneurial take on what to watch in coming months, we spoke with two experts with global perspectives on higher education and ed tech. John Fillmore is chief strategy officer for Chegg, a learning platform company formerly focused on textbook rentals...

The pandemic and unrest over racism in society have further exposed existing inequity in higher education and the workforce. For example, survey data from the Strada Education Network show that black and Latino Americans are more likely than white Americans to have been laid off during the crisis, and to have changed or canceled their postsecondary education plans. To get a broad perspective on th...

Several colleges and universities have eliminated intercollegiate sports teams in recent weeks, just as big-time college football gears up for a season filled with uncertainty amid a time of great unrest over racism in society. Welch Suggs, a professor at the University of Georgia, former journalist and university administrator, talked with us about what's happening with revenue-generating college...

The University of Alaska, Anchorage, in recent years has experienced its share of tight budgets and other crises, including an earthquake and merger proposals. Cathy Sandeen, chancellor of the multi-campus institution, talked with us about how the university remains focused on its open-access mission and trying to prevent the creation of education deserts amid the budget turmoil and other challeng...

The California State University system announced on May 12 that its fall term would be mostly online. The system was the first major U.S. university to make this move, and the announcement set off a flurry of news media coverage and debate among policy makers and college leaders. Tim White, Cal State's chancellor, takes us inside this decision during the episode. In his discussion with Paul Fain,...

California has seen 3 million new unemployment claims filed in recent months, and the state proposed a $740 million budget cut to its community college system. But California's two year colleges are drawing from lessons learned during the last recession to cope with mounting challenges amid the pandemic. Eloy Ortiz Oakley, chancellor of the system, which enrolls more than 2 million students across...

Earlier this year, most of higher education moved its instruction online in a matter of days or weeks. After making this unprecedented shift, and amid great uncertainty, faculty members and college leaders are scrambling to prepare and improve online learning options for the fall. To take stock of the great online pivot, where things stand now and what to expect for the fall, we spoke with Lindsay...

Southern New Hampshire University recently turned heads with a broad reboot of its campus-based programs, including slashed tuition and allowing students to choose hybrid online and other modalities. To better understand what this means for the private, nonprofit university, we spoke with Paul LeBlanc, SNHU's president and the chair of the American Council on Education's Board of Directors. The ep...