The purpose of postsecondary education and who gets in to where has been a hotly debated topic for almost 50 years. It’s tangled up in American ideas about meritocracy and the ethos (mythos?) that one can simply “pull themselves up by their bootstraps.” In that spirit, this week’s issue looks at different news and perspectives related to admission, value, and purpose in higher education. I can’t say we have all the answers, but hopefully, this issue sparks some good conversations on your campus.   

After reading today’s issue, share your thoughts in the comments about how prepared your campus is to provide the newly proposed admissions data to IPEDS! 

Opposition to New Admissions Data Collection Proposal 

From Colleges Push Back Against Trump’s Effort to Collect More Admissions Data | Inside Higher Ed 

Higher education institutions and their advocates believe the new requirements for additional admissions data lack structure and privacy safeguards and will pose a significant administrative burden for smaller institutions. 

Our Thoughts  

While transparency is crucial, the proposed Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement (ACTS) falls short of genuinely informing the public about college admissions. Instead, the framework appears designed to target a narrow band of elite institutions, ultimately imposing a hasty, poorly conceptualized reporting mandate that compromises institutional privacy and unnecessarily burdens the broader higher education sector. The Department’s own filing says ACTS is designed to “expose unlawful practices,” applies to four-year institutions with “selective” admissions, and would force five years of retrospective data in the first cycle. Yet “selective” is not defined, and key metrics are not standardized. That is a recipe for confusion, not clarity. 

Specifically, I have two primary concerns. The first is this feels like a witch hunt. The framing in the Federal Register is to pursue “elevated risk of noncompliance” at selective institutions, but AIR’s analysis shows more than 80 percent of the roughly 1,700 “selective” four-year institutions admit over half of applicants. While the public may often think “selective” indicates institutions that deny more applicants than they admit, our use of “selective” instead denotes any institutions that do not admit the vast majority or all their applicants. In other words, a blunt, sector-wide mandate is unlikely to surface the edge-case behavior the administration says it is chasing, and it will swamp hundreds of regional and mission-driven campuses in new red tape. 

The second is that the public comment record is badly skewed. Nearly 90 percent of the more than 3,400 supportive comments use nearly identical language from a form letter circulated by the activist group Defending Education. That is not genuine, public consensus; it is an organized campaign designed to show broad support where none may exist. Policymaking should not mistake copy-paste sentiment (that could have been partially created by a bot) for evidence.  

If we want public confidence to rise, the data we collect should inform rather than inflame. Define the problem precisely, collect what is reliable, and use it to help students make better choices. Anything else looks like a fishing expedition dressed up as disclosure, and that is not a standard most of higher education can or should support. 

Declining Confidence 

From Americans’ Faith in Higher Ed Has Declined Even Further | The Chronicle of Higher Education 

According to a new survey from the Pew Research Center, 70% of Americans believe that higher education is generally “going in the wrong direction,” which is up from 56% just five years ago.   

Our Thoughts  

The timing of this new data on public perceptions is not great. Colleges are already navigating a wave of federal scrutiny, from a proposed admissions reporting rule (see above) that many warn would create unreliable, privacy-risking data, to a controversial funding compact that ties federal support to campus policy changes. When the policy drumbeat feels like an attack on the sector, a fresh headline about public doubt lands harder. 

The complicating part is that other polls point the opposite way. Gallup finds confidence ticking up from the recent low, with roughly four in ten expressing a great deal or quite a lot of confidence. Vanderbilt reports a similar rebound, and a separate national survey led by Northeastern, Rutgers, Harvard, and Rochester shows three in four Americans have at least some trust that colleges will do the right thing, with strong support for university research. Mixed signals make planning harder, but they also tell us the public is not monolithic. 

So, what do we do with mixed information? First, we should focus on the parts that are most actionable. Students link trust to affordability, transparency, and the day-to-day experience of being able to stay enrolled when life gets expensive. By making affordability more transparent and visible, we can improve confidence in the people we most hope to persuade. Second, we shouldn’t let the loudest national narratives crowd out local proof. The same polls that flag doubt also show enduring respect for the research mission. Institutions that show how research, teaching, and community impact fit together will have an easier time making the case for their value while the national conversation swings between praise and critique. Mixed polling is a reminder to listen carefully and measure locally. Then, keep telling a clear story about why higher education matters and how we are making it work for students right now. 

How Higher Ed Can Shape Students 

From OPINION: Higher education must help shape how students learn, lead and build the skills employers want most | The Hechinger Report

Bridget Burns, the founding CEO of the University Innovation Alliance, argues that institutions must do a better job of helping students navigate the complete college experience.    

Our Thoughts  

As I read this piece, I kept coming back to this line: “But college isn’t a vending machine. You can’t insert tuition and expect a job to roll out.” While it is simple, I think it is right on target. Too often that is the expectation families bring to campus, which sets everyone up for disappointment and feeds the cycle of doubt about value. While we’re receiving mixed messages about public perception of higher education (see above), I do wonder if some of that is due to that misunderstanding of what college actually is. It is a platform, a lab, and a proving ground where learning happens in more places than a classroom. 

For me, the non-classroom value was on full display during the pandemic. When campuses went remote, students did not just miss lectures; they missed the experiences that turn learning into doing and peers into networks. Surveys at the time captured that gap, from perceived loss of collaborative and co-curricular benefits to the sense that online offerings could not substitute for the campus fabric students expected. As in person engagement returned, national data showed those interaction heavy experiences rebounded, which tells me students were looking for more than content all along. 

Given the current national debate about postsecondary education, Burns’s piece is well timed. Institutions should continue teaching well, but working to ensure that other high impact practices, such as undergraduate research, service learning, and internships, are visible and accessible to all students. While degrees do open doors for students, it is the experiences they participate in while pursuing a degree that makes those doors easier to walk through in the future.