Contrary to fears of indoctrination www.aeaweb.org/conference/2...

mods are asleep have a cocktail and post a thread of old timey college football programs and other weird shit i found on pinterest time

As a parent, I don't choose daycares based on having a "brand-new, highly qualified stall." That's an unfortunate typo...or their potties are truly something special.

Expect there to be efforts to pull or restrict funding to Minnesota public colleges. Diane Jones served in the first Trump administration and has the ear of ED officials.

Joke's on them...I took the ACT (and nearly a quarter century ago at that).

An appointment I wasn't expecting: Ron DeSantis named former University of Florida and Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer to the New College of Florida Board of Trustees. www.alligator.org/article/2025...

Here is my first look at an impressive new program-level dataset that the Department of Education released ahead of next week's negotiated rulemaking sessions. More data may come out in response to negotiator requests, so stay tuned.

Happy New Year! My 5:30 run this morning was a delight--the temperature difference going up and down hills is an underappreciated joy. And I got to see the first tiny bit of light on the eastern horizon as I finished up. Then it was time to make French toast with sprinkles with the kids. So good!

I'm going to bed at 9:30 so I can enjoy my New Year's tradition of going out for a quiet run at 5:30 before getting the kids up. It's my time to relax and process. Happy New Year to all of the night owls out there!

Here are some key takeaways from the negotiated rulemaking dataset that was released yesterday. --Only 3.5% of programs will likely fail the earnings metric, but it's disproportionately for-profits and certificates. --Nearly 30% of grad/professional programs are over the new annual lending limits.

Diego Pavia's grandchildren are enjoying his comeback effort. What a way to exit a fascinating college football career!

A tidbit from yesterday's negotiated rulemaking data release: 18 programs of study saw students borrow $100 million in federal loans in FY25. Some programs are huge with small borrowing amounts (hi, SNHU!), and others have fewer students take out more debt. www.ed.gov/laws-and-pol...

I'll write a blog post on this at some point over the next few days, but a much larger share of programs at for-profit colleges are estimated to fail the new federal earnings test using newly released data. The level of program also matters, with undergraduate certificates being the main culprit.

The Department of Education just released a bunch of new data on program-level financial aid and earnings in advance of the upcoming negotiated rulemaking session. Notably, this has new data on earnings four years after graduation. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to access everything.

It's encouraging to see new data coming out of NSF. I'm very interested to see how the Survey of Earned Doctorates holds up.

We typically thing of populist attacks on higher ed as a right-wing phenomena (e.g. Turkey, Hungary and the US), but this piece is also good and showing how Amlo's left-wing populist government in Mexico operated in much the same manner. doi.org/10.1017/S153...

As someone who has closely covered New College of Florida since early 2023, there are at least a dozen problems with this article (I stopped counting at 12). The most significant issue is how the reporter condenses runaway spending to a paragraph. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/28/u...

I'd like to claim "that one department chair who's kinda normal (you know which one we mean)." www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/an-...

The Department of Justice using the False Claims Act to try to force private businesses holding government contracts to drop diversity initiatives comes as no surprise to anyone in higher ed. The government is trying to use every tool available to achieve their goals.

I think most researchers and policymakers underestimate how much people really do not understand the difference between college sticker and net price. And the way high prices at a select few influences feelings about all.

To be fair, Kid Rock does have numerous citations in Google Scholar.

I said this for the Chronicle's 25-year retrospective. But my more serious answer over the last quarter century was the move from college access to completion (around 2008) and then return on investment (around 2017). It encapsulates all the pressures around us. www.chronicle.com/newsletter/d...

I got an entire book of dad jokes for Christmas. It's always good to keep building up my supply!

They’re not perfect, but golly, public universities are one of the best engines of economic mobility we have

The sticking point in negotiations between Harvard and the Trump administration appears to be where the payment goes. Harvard wants the entire $500 million to go to workforce development, while the government wants to collect $200 million of the money. The saga goes on.

Coming to a campus near you: goldengatexpress.org/114511/campu...

I have gotten three requests in the last few days from journals that I have never submitted to asking for me to review manuscripts within 14 days. Nope. I'm not even sending out any manuscripts as an associate editor until January 5. Time for a break, folks!

ED is launching a Clery Act investigation of Brown following the recent killings on campus. I don't recall them doing that with this fall's high-profile killing at Utah Valley. www.ed.gov/about/news/p...

The College Football Playoff...where the first team to six points can win.

One thing I’ve noticed in reporting on the New School as in the conversation about budget deficits and cuts in higher ed more generally is how few facts and actual analysis enter into the discussion.

This is a heck of a Friday afternoon news dump as much of American higher education is already out of town for the holidays. The new governor of Virginia can't be happy.

Once again, good luck finding a deep pool of qualified applicants for college president searches. And judging by how many executive search firms fill up my and colleagues' inboxes, the challenges extend to the provost and dean levels. www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

The whole exchange that this is from is fascinating but I’ll add my pet thing and say that I remain really interested in understanding why people are so confident that college prices are up in recent years when they are not.

I pick my words carefully when describing colleges' financial situations, but sometimes the numbers are simply that bad. I hope that Webster can turn it around, but it doesn't seem like recruiting students from India and Nepal who immediately leave is the answer. www.chronicle.com/article/webs...

I saw a school bus with a Subway ad on it. That's a first, but budgets are tight.

The University of Arkansas spent $36,000 on balloons last year. After seeing what they got, we think it was worth every penny. In FOIAball this week, we EMBRACE THE HOG. www.foiaball.com/p/college-fo...

Workers are feeling increasingly anxious about losing their jobs in a tough labor market...and those with higher education levels aren't exempt. The prospect of AI being used for job cuts is scaring people. www.wsj.com/economy/jobs...

18 state attorneys general sent a letter to the Department of Education opposing the ACTS survey collection. Their issues are mainly with privacy. They're not wrong to be concerned. oag.ca.gov/system/files...

The word of the year in higher education in 2025 has been "uncertainty." We may get a few bits of certainty in 2026 on things like how grad student lending limits affect universities and students, but it's still a very wild ride going forward.

I wrote 404 words toward a paper today while snuggling my happy kid in my lap. Life is good.

Those of us who study higher ed know that price has been flat for a while. A point is that especially at public research universities (flagship types) have been hoarding enrollments, taking them away from regional campuses, precisely because they’re unable to charge much more per student.

I really appreciate @erickelderman.bsky.social's play-by-play coverage of today's federal accreditation meeting.

@dubravkaritter.bsky.social Tomas Monarrez and I explore the credit profile of graduate students likely to need private loans after OBBBA’s new loan limits take effect next July. A bit over 1/3 have thin or poor credit and may struggle to get a private loan under typical underwriting practices.

First minor drama at #NACIQI: The election for a new chair. Nominees are Zakiya Smith-Ellis, appointed by Congressional Dems and a former Secretary of Higher Ed in NJ; and Jay Greene, a new member and former Heritage Foundation fellow appointed by ED. First round of voting ends in an 8-8 tie...

Quite possibly the best con law article ever written in the English language. Bravo @jerryedwards.bsky.social

I'm expecting some fireworks tomorrow at the first meeting in months of the federal committee that oversees accreditors. This is a key mechanism for the administration's higher ed goals.

The broad outcry over which graduate degrees are defined as "professional" and thus subjected to a much higher loan cap has turned into a specific request from lawmakers: add nursing to the list thehill.com/homenews/edu...

1/ On Bluesky I often see people say that arts and humanities programs are being slashed in higher ed for ideological reasons. Maybe that’s true. It’s plausible. But I haven’t seen any data or studies on program closures that would support or refute it. Please link to any evidence you know about.

I took a quick look at the new IPEDS data release. The new cost survey seems to have some bugs, so I dug into admissions data by gender as a preview of the proposed data collection by a whole bunch of subgroups. Beware small cell sizes and noise! robertkelchen.com/2025/12/14/a...

I'm also in wait-and-see mode on the effects of caps on grad student loans. My big questions are: (1) Can the private market scale up in time? (2) Do students even want private loans? (3) Will grad programs change admissions practices? www.insidehighered.com/news/busines...