ICYMI | “Rage bait” was the word of the year, according to Oxford University Press. But “uncertainty” is probably a more apt word for 2025—at least according to findings from our annual surveys of campus leaders and students. Read more: https://bit.ly/4pEfKaZ #EDUSky #HigherEd

ICYMI | For one California Institute of Technology professor, sifting through ash and soot sparked flickers of relief in the wake of devastating wildfires earlier this year. https://bit.ly/4pr24Ql #EDUSky #AcademicSky #HigherEd

ICYMI | In January 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that banned what it called “discriminatory” diversity, equity and inclusion practices in the federal government, promising to “restor[e] merit-based opportunity.” Read more: https://bit.ly/49j9NtS #EDUSky

ICYMI | President Donald Trump’s skepticism of the current accreditation system bled into the December 16th NACIQI meeting—the first since Education Secretary Linda McMahon and other officials were confirmed. Read the full story: https://bit.ly/3MSJP93

NIH Approves 100s of Grant Applications It Shelved or Denied Last year, the Trump administration widely rejected funding research it disfavors. But, just before 2026 began, one of its agencies agreed in court filings to take another look at proposals it sat on or turned down. https://bit.ly/3N4PCbu

ICYMI | Miguel Luna has seen his campus roiled by changes this year after state lawmakers passed a law in 2024 banning diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, just before the second Trump administration began ramping up attacks on DEI. Read more: https://bit.ly/3LkPkwu

ICYMI Student Success | 26 Stats for 2026 Inside Higher Ed compiled some key data points of 2025, outlining new and continuing trends in the student experience and perceptions of higher education. https://bit.ly/4bdjE6Q #EDUSky #HigherEd #AcademicSky

ICYMI | For nine years, Inside Higher Ed published an annual list of predictions known as the In-and-Out List, before taking a four-year hiatus. That ends now. Read our full list for 2026: https://bit.ly/4qANAOU

Career Advice Reminder | Ask Your Students Why They Use AI The answer may surprise you. https://bit.ly/4pewXqU #AcademicSky #HigherEd #EDUSky

Happy New Year from everyone here at Inside Higher Ed! We hope you enjoy the day, and we'll be back in your feeds tomorrow! 🪩

Texas A&M Won’t Reinstate Instructor Fired for Gender Identity Lesson https://bit.ly/45ka4ve #EDUSky #HigherEd

Virginia Sued Over In-State Tuition for Undocumented Students https://bit.ly/45p2uiV #EDUSky #HigherEd

Our Favorites of 2025 | "I have to go with this edition of After the First 100 Days, our weekly federal policy news roundup, by news editor Katherine Knott. It was a crucial moment for higher ed in 2025," Colleen Flaherty, senior editor for special content. https://bit.ly/4aFjfdm

ICYMI Student Success | Financial Struggles Impede Students’ Academic Progress New research from Trellis Strategies shows that the average college student has a high rate of financial fragility, which can negatively impact their ability to concentrate on school. https://bit.ly/49kR7d3 #EDUSky

Our 2025 Favorites | "Josh took an event that was making headlines across Florida and the country and gave readers a behind-the-scenes look at which universities were striking agreements with the Trump administration and how," Jessica Blake, federal policy reporter. https://bit.ly/4jmXRf6

Career Advice Reminder | How Can Deans Support Faculty Well-Being? Support for faculty well-being should be an expectation of academic leadership, Richard Badenhausen writes. https://bit.ly/42zR7mK #EDUSky #AcademicSky #HigherEd

ICYMI Student Success | Helping Student Parents Overcome Financial Fragility Data from Trellis Strategies finds that college students who have caregiving responsibilities are also more likely than their peers to work full-time and lack basic needs. https://bit.ly/4azWYgZ #EDUSky #AcademicSky

Our 2025 Favorites | "This story about verbal policies banning professors from teaching about gender identity in Texas perfectly encapsulates Emma's incredible ability to root out the truth of complex controversies," Johanna Alonso, admissions and enrollment reporter. 🔗 https://bit.ly/4jiISTn

ICYMI | Claflin University students were perusing old campus photos when one image caught a student’s eye—it was a picture of his grandmother from her college days. He knew they attended the same university, but he had never seen a picture of her in her younger years. https://bit.ly/4pkg4uZ

Career Advice Reminder | How Closing a University Changes You Nancy H. Blattner looks back on her time as the final president of Fontbonne University. https://bit.ly/4so4FNQ #EDUSky #AcademicSky #HigherEd

ICYMI Student Success | Meet the Class of 2029 The CIRP Freshman Survey highlights the growing diversity of incoming college students, the pressures of paying for college, increased mental health concerns and, for the first time, how state policies factor into college choice. https://bit.ly/4pkrXBo

Our 2025 Favorites | "Kathryn's feature took Turning Point USA students’ grief seriously while also drawing on a range of perspectives to add balance and provide context about the movement’s present and future," Sara Weissman, nontraditional students and MSI reporter. https://bit.ly/49chvWr

Our Favorites of 2025 | "Ashley Mowreader worked to identify which institutions and how many students were affected, resulting in a widely-read map that was cited in legal filings and by numerous other publications." Josh Moody, business, finance and leadership reporter. 🔗 https://bit.ly/49x0yas

Career Advice Reminder | ‘Win-Win’ Pedagogy Is Impossible in a Diverse Classroom Teaching choices—about a laptop ban, for instance—involve trade-offs, and that’s OK. https://bit.ly/4sgEEQl #AcademicSky #EDUSky #HigherEd

IHE's Favorites of 2025 | "This story... showed a truth that has been raising eyebrows across the political spectrum: NCF was spending “more than 10x per student what the other 11 members of the State University System spend," Ryan Quinn, policy reporter. Read the article: https://bit.ly/48V1ghH

IHE's Favorites of 2025 | "This piece from Jessica helped to illuminate how another federal agency was applying pressure to colleges and universities and what’s at stake for higher ed more broadly," Katherine Knott, news editor. Read the full article: https://bit.ly/49yVGAP

IHE's Favorites of 2025 | "Johanna looked at how one of most feared, criticized and occasionally, celebrated developments to upend higher education in recent years—generative AI—is changing how faculty teach and assess students," Susan Greenberg, managing editor. Full story: https://bit.ly/4pTxMGO

2025 Staff Favorites | "One of Ryan’s many talents as a reporter is being able to take a hot topic in news and deeply report on it to add layers of context, insight and inquiry that could otherwise be overlooked or misunderstood," Ashley Mowreader, reporter. Read it here: https://bit.ly/4saWrsh

2025 Most-Read Opinions | Asian Americans Got Played on Affirmative Action Let’s not get played again, OiYan Poon and Janelle Wong write. https://bit.ly/4qpueMr

Student Success | First-Year Persistence Continues Slow Climb Back From Pandemic Drop Nearly 84 percent of the first-year students who enrolled in fall 2023 persisted at their institution to the spring term, though 14 percent left higher education entirely. https://bit.ly/4pfWLDj

ICYMI | The ‘Death Spiral’ of Deferred Maintenance A majority of colleges and universities were poised to fund less than a quarter of deferred maintenance needs last fiscal year, an IHE survey finds. Experts warn the backlog represents a growing enrollment risk. https://bit.ly/4sko7Lo

ICYMI | The Department of Justice has declared a slew of Department of Education programs and grants unconstitutional based on the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and the University of North Carolina. https://bit.ly/3LjEVkL #EDUSky #HigherEd #AcademicSky

Career Advice Reminder | 5 Science-Backed Ways to Improve Academic Writing There’s a science behind writing clearer sentences, Yellowlees Douglas writes. https://bit.ly/473DbDa #EDUSky #HigherEd #AcademicSky

We wish you and yours a happy holiday season! We'll be back in your social feeds recapping the year in higher education on Friday. 🎄❄️

2025 Most-Read Opinions | AI and Higher Ed: An Impending Collapse Universities’ rush to embrace AI will lead to an untenable outcome, Robert Niebuhr writes. https://bit.ly/497ULGW #EDUSky #HigherEd

The Year That Changed Research

AAUP Raises Alarm Over Palantir’s Work for Ed Department

ICYMI | At the end of her latest Voices of Student Success episode, Ashley Mowreader introduced her successor Joshua Bay. Here's a little snippet of their conversation. 🔗 Listen to the full episode, including 2026 predictions, wherever you listen to podcasts! https://bit.ly/44DQzxA

ED to Investigate Brown Over Campus Shooting https://bit.ly/4qjIV3x #EDUSky

Student Success | Most Employers Confident in Higher Ed They want graduates who know how to work with diverse teams, according to a new survey from the American Association of Colleges and Universities. https://bit.ly/3XOl4wY #EDUSky #HigherEd #AcademicSky

Colleges Share Joyful Messages This Holiday Season From the foibles of a bobcat trying to prepare a holiday dinner to sweet memories of winters past, this year’s holiday videos are full of both laughs and sincerity. 🎄 Watch our favorites. ➡️ https://bit.ly/4p4OTnU

ICYMI | Inside a Network of Fake College Websites Dozens of fake college websites, which appear to be connected, are pushing scams. Many of the sites appear to be built with or supplemented by generative AI. https://bit.ly/3MRlbW7 #EDUSky #HigherEd

Career Advice Reminder | What I Learned From Advising 120 Ph.D. Students Too often, career planning is an afterthought and students seek degrees without direction, William J. Rothwell writes. https://bit.ly/44DBeNp #EDUSky #AcademicSky #HigherEd

CSU Trade Workers Union Votes To Strike Statewide https://bit.ly/3N05jAF #EDUSky #HigherEd #AcademicSky

DOJ Report Declares MSIs Unconstitutional The decision comes after the Department of Education asked the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel to review the legality of a number of programs they said used racial “quotas.” https://bit.ly/4p47EIl

ICYMI | Students on Academic Quality, Success Undergraduates across institution types rate the quality of education they’re getting highly, and they share what could boost their academic success in our Student Voice: Amplified series. https://bit.ly/4pXneXw

ICYMI | Our Favorite Stories of 2025 From scoops gleaned through public records requests to deep analyses of current events, these were some of the Inside Higher Ed team’s favorite articles of this tumultuous year. https://bit.ly/4auNZxt

Career Advice Reminder | There Is No Such Thing as ‘Alternative’ Careers for Ph.D.s It’s time we free ourselves of the false binary of academic and nonacademic careers post-Ph.D., writes Briana Konnick. https://bit.ly/4j5wdmA

☃️ Inside Higher Ed will be on a publishing break starting Monday, December 23, 2025, in observance of the winter holidays. We’ll return online on Monday, January 5, 2025. Wishing you all a happy holiday season!

ICYMI | Here are some headline from last week: 🗣️ You Can’t AI-Proof the Classroom, Experts Say. Get Creative Instead. 🏀 Safeguarding the Integrity of College Sport 📸 The Year in Photos Read the full weekly news update: https://bit.ly/3MLiB48 #EDUSky #HigherEd #AcademicSky