School leaders who wish to comply with new regulations while simultaneously ensuring they're appealing to diverse student bodies are parrying legislative restrictions with a simple yet sly strategy: rebranding their DEI offices.
President Joe Biden is following through with a plan B to alleviate the country's student loan crisis, pivoting away from blanket relief for all borrowers to focus on those struggling with growing balances.
While an agreement that allows smaller schools to provide online learning free of complicated compliance measures may be in peril, some experts believe the need for stronger consumer protection outweighs the negatives.
Michael Dinich, founder and CEO of Wealth of Geeks, believes each state's enrollment reflects state policies supporting students on their postsecondary academic journey. Of the five states with the highest rate of college-going learners, four prove this is the case.
As colleges and universities across Florida and Texas are forced to shudder their DEI offices, higher education leaders in other states whose lawmakers threaten to propose similar legislation are voicing their opposition—before it becomes too late.
While the GOP-led movement to disband DEI offices has caught fire across the country, school donations in 2023 suggest a rift between lawmakers' wishes and the community's.
“This is not an anomaly: Free speech in higher education is getting worse,” said Laura Beltz, director of policy reform at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
National interest in revitalizing a domestic manufacturing industry related to microchip technology and AI has created an opportunity for higher education to strengthen its value proposition at the two-year, four-year and postgraduate level.
While 20 states this year are in the middle of their biennial cycle, the remaining will fight to pass favorable budgets that can alleviate the challenges present among colleges and universities today.
Completion-goals funding will push public higher education and state policymakers to address the region's labor market needs together, in turn boosting graduates' return on investment and improving the economy, according to Complete College America.
