The 2023 calendar yr is the primary since COVID-19 arrived when each increased training development doesn’t need to be considered via a pandemic lens.
Results of the coronavirus disaster linger, however new matters are taking middle stage, like potential reworks to the federal monetary help system, in addition to recent scrutiny — and the rejection of — U.S. Information & World Report’s extremely influential school rankings.
As Greater Ed Dive seems forward to the brand new yr, we anticipate retaining you up to date on these seven tales, plus no matter else the brand new yr brings.
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Efforts to repair monetary help within the limelight
Requires schools to be extra clear about their monetary help provides have come from most corners of the upper training world — lawmakers throughout the political spectrum, associations and consumer-protection advocates.
College students and their households who obtain monetary help usually need to decipher a fancy net of help sources, together with federal loans, grants and work-study, which may go away them guessing how a lot they’ll really find yourself paying.
The problem appeared to return to a head towards the top of 2022, as 10 increased training organizations late in November stated they’d convene a process pressure geared toward standardizing monetary help info.
Following the associations’ announcement, the U.S. Authorities Accountability Workplace, a congressional watchdog, dropped a bombshell report discovering that greater than 9 in 10 schools downplay their web worth or don’t provide any particulars about it in monetary help provides.
Republicans had been offended. Rep. Virginia Foxx, a number one candidate to be the brand new chair of the Home’s training committee, known as the GAO’s findings “egregious and unacceptable.”
Foxx additionally promoted the School Value Transparency and Scholar Safety Act, a Republican-led invoice that may name on the U.S. training secretary to ascertain constant phrases and definitions for monetary help.
Some consultants additionally anticipate the U.S. Division of Schooling to suggest monetary help standardization laws, because the Biden administration has moved to ascertain a number of guidelines so far that goal to shore up flaws within the pupil help system.
Scholar mortgage forgiveness retains middle stage
U.S. increased ed might have gained the widest consideration in 2022 for President Joe Biden’s plan to wipe away broad quantities of pupil mortgage debt for particular person debtors incomes as much as $125,000.
Every borrower was set to obtain as much as $10,000 in debt forgiveness — $20,000 in the event that they obtained a federal Pell Grant in school. The transfer meant to assuage Democrats’ progressive flank, a few of whom had known as on the president to cancel extra debt. It additionally acknowledged continued monetary ache factors from the pandemic.
Nevertheless, lawsuits floor the plan to a halt. Rulings in federal lawsuits paused it whereas elevating questions on whether or not the administration had overreached its authority. Now, debt forgiveness sits earlier than the U.S. Supreme Court docket, which expedited the case and expects to listen to oral arguments in February.
Authorized consultants have expressed doubts the conservatives who dominate the excessive court docket will again uniliteral debt forgiveness. Conservatives usually argue the debt forgiveness plan is financially reckless and spits within the face of taxpayers who didn’t attend school.
In the meantime, Biden prolonged a pandemic-era pause on mortgage repayments whereas the Supreme Court docket hears the case. The moratorium, which had been scheduled to run out on the finish of 2022, will now final till 60 days after litigation is resolved or 60 days after the top of June — whichever comes first.
The try at debt forgiveness seems to have ramifications no matter whether or not it in the end succeeds. Foxx in September stated she would examine whether or not Biden administration officers who labored on the plan would personally profit from the cash.
Race-conscious admissions insurance policies beneath menace
The Supreme Court docket will lastly determine this yr on long-simmering authorized challenges to insurance policies at Harvard College and the College of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that take into account candidates’ race through the admissions course of.
A conservative authorized group taking over the 2 establishments, College students for Honest Admissions, has an extended historical past of suing over schools’ race-conscious insurance policies. However this time round, court docket watchers say SFFA appears nearly sure to succeed, because the justices’ conservative tilt nearly actually give them the votes to strike down these practices.
Those that tuned into oral arguments in 2022 famous a number of justices’ skepticism towards Harvard and UNC-Chapel Hill’s causes for defending race-conscious admissions. Faculties that take into account race, nevertheless, solely use it as one metric in admissions choices and argue various pupil our bodies carry sturdy academic advantages.
Virtually, solely a small slice of schools would wish to reshape their admissions practices ought to the court docket strike down race-conscious insurance policies, as most establishments settle for a majority of candidates. Nonetheless, school leaders have shared fears {that a} ruling in opposition to race-conscious admissions would sign to traditionally marginalized candidates that they aren’t welcome in increased ed. In addition they fear campus range would take a big hit.
Consultants have suggested admissions workplaces to speak with different departments early about methods on messaging within the occasion of a ruling in opposition to race-conscious insurance policies and to develop methods to proceed crafting various lessons.
Can U.S. Information & World Report rankings recuperate?
Greater ed officers watched with nice curiosity as Yale College’s regulation college, after which Harvard College’s, in November introduced they’d not cooperate with U.S. Information & World Report’s Greatest Legislation Faculties rankings, one of many publication’s many school lists that carry main clout.
The rankings, particularly the Greatest Faculties undergraduate listing, have lengthy been the topic of complaints that they preoccupy institutional determination making to the detriment of schools’ missions. U.S. Information’ methodology additionally usually comes beneath fireplace for measuring popularity, wealth and exclusivity — and never the precise high quality of establishments’ training, how accessible it’s or how a lot it adjustments the lives of the scholars served.
Since Yale and Harvard stated they wouldn’t ship U.S. Information the mandatory knowledge, a contingent of different regulation colleges — top-ranked and never — have adopted go well with.
These regulation colleges usually say the rankings drawback establishments that wish to raise regulation college students into public service careers. U.S. Information opened the brand new yr by saying adjustments to its regulation college rating methodology. However it wasn’t sufficient for at the very least some regulation deans to purchase again into the system.
A significant unanswered query is whether or not regulation colleges’ rejection will spur the same motion amongst undergraduate schools. Whereas no undergraduate school has shared that they’re revolting in opposition to the rankings, some consultants marvel if they’re biding their time till nearer to when the Greatest Faculties listing publishes, usually in September.
Regardless, the regulation colleges’ actions solely add to long-building animus in opposition to the U.S. Information rankings, which suffered different reputational blows in 2022. The publication booted Columbia College from its Greatest Faculties rankings after questions on knowledge it submitted had been raised by one of many college’s arithmetic professors. It then kicked a number of different schools from its 2022 rankings, alleging in addition they misreported knowledge.
Extra school consolidations on the horizon
Consultants in increased ed finance predicted the monetary stresses early within the pandemic would result in some low-enrollment schools’ demise, just for federal pandemic help to considerably defend establishments.
Nevertheless, no new federal help seems to be coming down the pipeline. Some establishments had already turned to austerity measures, because the pool of traditional-age school college students begins to run dry.
Among the many main closings and consolidations introduced in increased ed in 2022 had been Lincoln School, a predominantly Black establishment in Illinois that shut down after a cyberattack added to already mounting stresses, and Indiana College-Purdue College Indianapolis, which is splitting up into separate operations run by its constituent analysis universities.
As schools proceed to really feel the pandemic’s lingering monetary pinch on prime of demographic developments putting downward stress on the sizes of their pupil our bodies, extra establishments will doubtless meet comparable fates.
Enrollment woes proceed
As pandemic-related restrictions eased and life appeared to settle extra into normalcy, increased ed leaders held out hope a COVID-19-era enrollment decline would rebound.
That doesn’t look like the case. Enrollment fell by 1.1% in fall 2022 from the prior yr, in response to the Nationwide Scholar Clearinghouse Analysis Middle.
Establishments suffered throughout the board — neighborhood schools, four-year public schools and for-profits. Much less-selective schools and two-year establishments bore the brunt of those declines.
Some knowledge factors, nevertheless, ought to encourage the sector. Enrollment at traditionally Black schools and universities rose by 2.5% between fall 2021 and fall 2022. And between fall 2020 and at the moment, enrollment at HBCUs inched up by just below a share level.
Additionally, undergraduate enrollment at primarily on-line schools jumped by greater than 3% between fall 2021 and fall 2022.
Skepticism of schools’ worth might push down pupil counts. And the so-called delivery dearth through the Nice Recession is arriving for increased training, shrinking the contingent of highschool graduates accessible to enroll in school — and that means enrollment will doubtless proceed to wane.
Scrutiny over OPMs grows
Ed tech traders and different observers shall be watching intently to see whether or not on-line program administration firms, or OPMs, will have the ability to recuperate from a rocky yr marked by layoffs and heightened scrutiny of their enterprise fashions.
2U, one of the crucial distinguished OPMs within the U.S., accomplished across-the-board layoffs final yr that led to a 20% discount in personnel bills. Coursera, a high-profile MOOC platform with a small OPM enterprise, additionally introduced in November that it was decreasing its workforce, although the corporate didn’t disclose what number of workers had been let go.
However financial headwinds aren’t OPMs’ solely hassle. Many of those firms depend on tuition-share agreements, through which they supply upfront capital for on-line applications in trade for a minimize of their future income, usually between 40% and 60%.
Democratic lawmakers requested the U.S. Division of Schooling late final yr to formally examine whether or not the company ought to proceed to permit schools to enter tuition-share contracts with OPMs that present recruiting providers. They questioned whether or not these fashions incentivize OPMs to use aggressive recruiting strategies.
Authorized hassle can also be brewing.
A lawsuit introduced in December by former College of Southern California college students made the same argument as Democrats. Their grievance focuses on on-line education schemes USC launched with 2U’s assist. They allege the college and firm labored collectively to lure college students into applications by promoting artificially inflated rankings in U.S. Information.
Natalie Schwartz contributed to this report.