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FAFSA completions are on the upswing.  

An estimated 56% of current high school seniors could end up completing the federal financial aid application this year, if current trends hold, said Bill DeBaun, senior director for data and strategic initiatives at the National College Attainment Network. 

That would be the highest FAFSA completion rate since the nonprofit began tracking it in 2017 — “all-time highs,” DeBaun said at a press briefing yesterday afternoon. 

Filling out the FAFSA is a first step in accessing federal financial aid. More students completing the form also means more low-income students identified as eligible for federal Pell Grants. The Pell Grant is also a key indicator colleges look at when distributing additional institutional aid. That all translates to more financial aid for those who need it most.

So far, 43% of high school seniors have finished the form, according to NCAN’s tracker, which includes completions through Feb. 13. That’s up 10.6% from 2023, the last year the form opened on its usual Oct. 1 date. (Completions are also ahead of where they were at the same point last year, although the form opened late.) 

Source: National College Attainment Network

📚 Read more: El Paso families turn to FAFSA info sessions for help with 2026-27 financial aid (via our partner El Paso Matters) 

The progress this year comes after a rough time for FAFSA. Technical issues plagued the rollout of a revised form two years ago, hurting completion rates, temporarily locking out mixed-status families, and forcing some students to make college decisions without financial aid offers. 

📚 Read more: How the FAFSA debacle is playing out in one college counselor’s office (via our partner WBEZ, in 2024) 

But now, things are looking up, NCAN staff members said yesterday. The simplified form known as Better FAFSA is finally working well and the Federal Student Aid office has addressed pain points. Two more states, Connecticut and Pennsylvania, will require FAFSA completion for high school graduation for the class of 2027.

📚 Read more: A historic look shows FAFSA completion rates aren’t quite as bleak as you might think (via yours truly, in 2024) 

What’s also notable about the potential for 56% FAFSA completion is that there isn’t usually a lot of variance in the rate most years. “None of this is about juicing FAFSA completion for its own sake,” DeBaun said. Rather, it’s a sign of continued demand for college.

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Elsewhere on Open Campus

A demonstrator holds an anti-ICE sign during a protest at the University of Pittsburgh last week. (Alex Jurkuta/Pittsburgh’s Public Source)

From Pittsburgh: Maddy Franklin at our partner Pittsburgh’s Public Source asked the city’s 10 universities: What are your policies if ICE shows up on campus? 

Six of the 10 responded. The University of Pittsburgh was the only one to detail how its supporting students, beyond sharing information online.

Amy Morona at our partner Signal Ohio did a similar check-in with the state’s 14 public universities and found few publicly share any information about what faculty members or students should do if federal immigration agents show up on campus.

From Berkeley: UC Berkeley was among a slew of universities that cut ties with the Ph.D. Project following a Department of Education investigation, reports Felicia Mello at our partner Berkeleyside. 

The Ph.D. Project has helped students of color in doctorate degrees in business since the 1990s. The Education Department argues that it violates federal anti-discrimination law by restricting admission to its programs by race. The administration has also launched dozens of investigations into diversity efforts at universities across the country, including at UC Berkeley. 

“All the programs that were being scrutinized helped create more belonging for Black students and queer and Latinx and Asian students,” Antonio Ingram, senior counsel at the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund, told Felicia. 

From North Carolina:  Some faculty members in the University of North Carolina system say a new policy requiring the all course syllabi to be posted in a public, searchable database exposes them to harassment and security threats, writes Brianna Atkinson, our reporter at WUNC.

North Carolina is the latest state to impose such a syllabi policy, which critics say chills speech on campus and creates a culture where faculty members feel surveilled, particularly by outside watchdog groups. 

In announcing the syllabi policy in December, System President Peter Hans said “more transparency is the right response” to the scrutiny facing higher ed right now. He denied WUNC’s request to further discuss faculty safety. 

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As college degree holders increase, household incomes rise. (Photo by Tara Winstead)

Fifty years of data show states with rising education attainment saw the largest income gains, highlighting higher ed’s role in economic growth. 

The data comes from an Urban Institute brief exploring whether states are better off now than they were 50 years ago. Between 1970 and 2023, every state except West Virginia had an increase in inflation-adjusted median household income, the Urban Institute found. Midwestern states in the Great Lakes region experienced the least income growth while Western states, New England, Texas, and Florida saw the most significant growth.

Increased education attainment and increases in the percentage of immigrants in a state’s population were the two factors most closely associated with household income growth, the report said. All states saw a sizable increase in bachelor’s degree holders over the 50-year period studied.

The report cited several possible reasons for the connection between degree attainment and income growth: bachelor’s degree holders earn higher wages, higher paying jobs could attract degree holders into these states, and out-of-state college students may decide to stay after graduation.

“Whichever way you slice it, higher education is a vital part of driving state economies, and should be valued accordingly,” the National College Attainment Network said in a post about the findings. 

📚 Read more: Nearly half of Texas high school students who earn college credits are Hispanic, study says (via our partner The Texas Tribune) 

📚 Read more: Recent high school graduates and older students are enrolling at Colorado’s community colleges at higher rates (via our partner Chalkbeat Colorado) 

This pattern likely won’t surprise readers of this newsletter. At Open Campus, we talk often about how colleges are economic engines. This belief is core to our new community college accountability initiative: 8.5 million Americans bet their futures on community colleges every year and the sector deserves hard-hitting, thorough coverage. When these institutions fail students, entire communities lose pathways to prosperity. 

The report also refutes the idea that low taxes and warm climates lead to prosperity — two components often cited as reasons for the population growth in the Sun Belt. Instead, policymakers should promote higher-wage sectors, grow talent through education and workforce training, and recruit an international talent pool, the report said. 

📚 Read more: What Ohioans say would make them trust public universities more (via our partner Signal Ohio) 

But as higher ed is called on to train future workers, there are also headwinds, as explored in new survey data from Ohio State University’s Center for Human Resource Research. While most respondents trust universities to deliver a good education, fewer than half said they trust universities to do so without political bias.

“If the public doubts the neutrality of instruction, it can erode confidence across other areas, even where outcomes (like graduation or job placement) are strong,” said the researchers, led by Steve Gavazzi, the center’s director. 

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Elsewhere on Open Campus

A student participates in sign language studies and activities at Vincennes University’s campus at the Indiana School for the Deaf in Indianapolis. (Jennifer Wilson Bibbs / Mirror Indy)

From Indianapolis: A new Deaf education master’s program at Butler University could lead to fewer deaf children learning to sign, Claire Rafford reports at our partner Mirror Indy. 

The program trains future educators how to teach speaking and listening to deaf children, particularly those who have cochlear implants. The curriculum includes only one American Sign Language Class, a one-credit course that teaches basic signs. 

Research is split on the best way to educate deaf children, whether through listening and spoken language, ASL, or a mix of both. 

“Some (deaf people) speak better than they sign, some sign better than they speak,” Geoffrey Bignell, director of advocacy for Indiana Association of the Deaf, said through an interpreter. “It’s very diverse, so providing everything is best, rather than limiting a professional who is going to be working in this environment.”

From Texas: Jessica Priest, our reporter at our partner The Texas Tribune spoke with more than a dozen Texas Tech faculty members over the past two months who said they were uncertain about how to respond to new state guidance dictating what they can teach about race, gender and sexuality.

“I can find very few examples of any faculty member — and I’m in touch with many of them — who have, like, in writing an administrator saying, ‘You cannot teach this,’” a humanities professor said. “But I’ve encountered many examples of administrators saying, ‘If I were you, I wouldn’t teach this, because that might cause a problem.’”

From Wisconsin: Miranda Dunlap, one of our pathways reporters at Wisconsin Watch, is moderating a conversation next week about the state’s 911 dispatcher shortage and what it takes to train more. Learn more and sign up here. 

Keep in touch

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Employers and community college leaders are working together to ensure students are receiving the types of training needed to work in high-demand local fields. (Jimmy Nilsson Masth on Unsplash)

A decade or so ago, companies would come to community college leaders and demand certain types of employees trained within a certain timeframe. 

“It’s now ‘How can I help you develop these programs?’” said Carlos Margo, dean of South Texas College’s Center for Advanced Training and Apprenticeships. 

That intentional collaboration is a shift that better serves everyone, panelists said in a conversation hosted by Open Campus yesterday. Panelists said that the goal isn’t just enrollment or completion, but creating clear routes into good jobs that meet student needs and employer demands.

📚 Read more: San Antonio College combines 2- and 4-year nursing degrees to help meet demand (via our partner San Antonio Report) 

📚 Read more: Taking the wheel: TCC students begin internships at Autobahn (via our partner Fort Worth Report) 

Robert D’Antonio, senior maintenance and engineering manager at Toyota Motors Texas, said some of the skills Toyota looks for include strong technical proficiency in areas like welding and machining; aptitude for emerging fields such as AI and app development; and problem-solving skills. 

Robert Garza, president of Palo Alto College, said that when he is looking to industry leaders to help develop programs, he doesn’t look for partners — he looks for friends. The difference is a shared interest in maintaining a long-term relationship versus conducting a one-off transaction. 

Top row: Carlos Margo, dean of the Center for Advanced Training and Apprenticeships at South Texas College, and Danya Pérez, reporter at our partner San Antonio Report
Bottom row: Robert D'Antonio, senior engineering and maintenance manager at Toyota Motors Texas, and Palo Alto College President Robert Garza

“Tell me, really, what is it that you need? And how can we find ways to work together to fulfill that need?” he said. 

📚 Read more: Palo Alto College invests $1M into popular welding program (via our partner San Antonio Report) 

Danya Pérez, our reporter at San Antonio Report, moderated the conversation. You can watch it here. (Passcode: Rb7+0%vG)

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Elsewhere on Open Campus

Anna Mykhailova, left, works as a sonographer at a Madison hospital while her husband, Sasha Druzhyna, studies for a master’s degree in medical perfusion at the Milwaukee School of Engineering. (Joe Timmerman/Wisconsin Watch)

From Wisconsin: Wisconsin needs more medical professionals, but those with foreign training are facing barriers that keep them from closing that gap, Natalie Yahr, our pathways to success reporter at Wisconsin Watch reported.

Anna Mykhailova and Sasha Druzhyna moved there from Ukraine, where she was a cardiologist and he was an anesthesiologist and perfusionist. Now, they’re having to start over in more ways than one. Mykhailova is working as a sonographer and Druzhyna is studying for a master’s degree in perfusion. (A perfusionist keeps blood pumping during heart transplants and keeps donor organs alive before transplant.)

That’s because “until recently, all foreign-trained physicians seeking to practice medicine in Wisconsin had to pass three licensing board exams — offered only in English — then compete against recent medical school graduates for a three-year residency,” Natalie wrote.

The state has eased those requirements but there are still hurdles. The couple is working hard to assimilate in a new country while also being forced to reset their careers.

“I feel like a homeless person. I feel like Ukraine is not my home anymore, and the United States is not my home yet,” Mykhailova said. 

From Puerto Rico: Trans and nonbinary students at the University of Puerto Rico say they feel unsafe now that the university has rolled back protections such as gender-inclusive bathrooms, Víctor Rodríguez Velázquez, our reporter at Centro de Periodismo Investigativo reported.

Other changes include ending a requirement to train professors on the rights of trans people and the option for transgender students to choose on-campus housing in accordance with their gender identity.

The shifts come as the Trump administration has taken aim at diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. Faculty members have argued the university complied without any real threat of losing funds.

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Photo by Element5 Digital

Men are much more likely than women to start college and leave without a credential. They’re also far less likely to return later and complete it.

That’s according to the American Institute for Boys and Men, which recently put out a report on the challenges of getting men re-engaged in college. Men make up 42% of undergraduates and half of all stopouts, according to the report. 

Stephanie Baker, senior policy manager in the higher education program at New America, told me in an email that the fact that men are more likely to stop out than women is also true for student fathers: 61% of student fathers stop out, compared to 48% of student mothers. (About 11% of male undergraduates are fathers.) 

📚 Read more: Few taking advantage of program to help Ohioans with ‘some college, no credential’ return to campus (via our partner Signal Ohio) 

Personal or family pressure and financial strain are the most common reasons for people to leave college. Adult learners must juggle jobs and caregiving on top of attending programs that are often designed for full-time students. About a quarter of men also leave for career or military reasons, the institute found. And as Adam Echelman, our community college reporter at CalMatters reported, men are also often socially isolated, something California Gov. Gavin Newsom has called a crisis.

It’s critical that colleges make flexible, part-time pathways available — something that would benefit student parents and adult learners of any gender, Baker said. It’s also important that colleges take steps to reach men about the importance of filing the FAFSA and support them in completing it, as student fathers are less likely than student mothers to file the federal financial aid application. 

We explored some of the challenges of engaging adult learners in a story we did at the end of last year with Bridge Michigan. Kim Kozlowski, Bridge Michigan’s education reporter, dug into the state’s Futures for Frontliners program, which offered free tuition to workers who were designated as “essential” during the pandemic. It was open to 625,000 state residents. Now as it’s winding down, just 1 in 4 who enrolled ended up earning a degree or credential. 

States should keep adult learners in mind when designing financial aid and re-enrollment programs, Baker said. Some states limit eligibility for grant aid by requiring or incentivizing full-time enrollment, for example.

📚 Read more: This college’s strategy for preventing dropouts? Classes half as long (via our partner Wisconsin Watch) 

📚 Read more:  UTEP, El Paso Community College seek to re-engage stopped-out students (via our partner El Paso Matters) 

Re-enrollment programs, which provide financial aid and coaching, are a tool colleges commonly use to attract adults back. Yet programs in the five states analyzed — North Carolina, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Michigan, and Louisiana — serve roughly twice as many women as men, the institute found. 

There is one bright spot. Using data from Michigan Reconnect, a scholarship for adults ages 25 or older, the institute found that men who did re-enroll were at least as likely to complete as women. (The institute called for additional research to figure out why this is the case.) 

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Trump administration threatens to take money from paychecks of borrowers behind on loans

Photo illustration by Mendy Kong/WBEZ

Lisa Kurian Philip, our reporter at WBEZ Chicago, and Maddy Franklin, our reporter at Pittsburgh’s Public Source, reported this week about how the Trump administration is trying to crack down people who are behind on student loan payments.

It’s a practice called wage garnishment. With 30 days notice, the government can seize up to 15% of a person’s paycheck if they haven’t made a loan payment for about nine months. More than 170,000 Illinois residents are behind on student loan payments, Lisa reported.

There are options available to borrowers who are behind on payments, including consolidating their loans.

“I hear from a lot of borrowers who sort of throw their hands up. They’re like, ‘Well, I can’t afford payment, so might as well let it default and do wage garnishment,’” Betsy Mayotte, president of The Institute of Student Loan Advice told Maddy. “I’m here to tell them that default is always more expensive.”

Elsewhere on Open Campus

Linda Chapman, right, and Judy Rogers work on knitting projects during a Lifelong Learning Institute class on the campus of University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. (Credit: Mike Roemer for Wisconsin Watch)

From Wisconsin: As Wisconsin’s workforce ages, the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay is trying to attract older learners, reports Miranda Dunlap, one of our pathways reporters at our partner Wisconsin Watch.

The university has a Lifelong Learning Institute geared toward older adults who want to learn new things, just for fun. It’s a volunteer-led club offering between 150 and 250 courses each semester. There are no tests, grades, or prerequisites.

“When I retired, I realized I’ve got to keep doing things. You can’t just sit in the chair,” said Gary Lewins, who has taken classes through the institute for a decade. Most recently, he took a class to learn how to digitize all of his old photo albums.

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Photo illustration by Mendy Kong/WBEZ

A note from me: I’m sending this last newsletter of the year a bit early before everyone takes off for the holidays. Wishing you and yours a good one! See you next year! 🎄

An “unprecedented number” of student loan borrowers are poised to default as the cost of living rises, according to a new survey from The Institute for College Access and Success. 

More than four in ten borrowers report making tradeoffs between loan payments and covering their basic needs, and 37% say their loans have hurt their ability to cover health care costs for themselves or their family, the survey found. 

📚Read more: Debt with no degree: Indy student loan borrowers who don’t graduate face unique challenges (via our partner Mirror Indy) 

One in five borrowers report their loans are currently in delinquency or default — meaning they are behind on payments — including one-third of people with some college but no degree. (The survey was of 1,010 borrowers, and responses were collected in September 2025.) 

‘Fewer resources than ever’

“Ultimately, borrowers today have fewer resources than ever to navigate their repayment options, and those options are ever shifting,” Michele Zampini, associate vice president for federal policy and advocacy at TICAS, wrote in a blog post late last week. 

📚 Read more: Chicagoans with student debt stressed as Trump, GOP cut back relief (via our partner WBEZ) 

Zampini pointed to the Trump administration’s move to gut the Education Department and lay off hundreds of experts in the Office of Federal Student Aid. Loan servicers are also struggling to comply with changes to the repayment system, Zampini added.

Congress overhauled student loan repayment in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act over the summer. They eliminated access to all existing income-based repayment plans and replaced them with a plan that raises payments for most borrowers and extends the maximum repayment term to 30 years from the current 10-25 years. The law also eliminated deferment and forbearance options for borrowers facing financial hardship. 

📚 Read more: How Ohio student loan borrowers are trying to navigate Trump administration’s repayment program changes (via our partner Signal Ohio)

“Taken together, these changes will likely make it harder for low- and middle-income borrowers to keep up with their monthly payments, which could lead to increased delinquency and default rates once they go into effect,” Zampini wrote.

SAVE settlement could make situation worse

Yesterday the Trump administration reached a settlement with several states over the SAVE program, a Biden-era student loan relief effort. As part of the settlement, the Education Department won’t enroll any new borrowers in SAVE and will deny pending applications.

Alexander Lundrigan, higher education policy and advocacy manager at the advocacy organization Young Invincibles, pointed to the TICAS survey in comments panning the settlement.

“At a time when everyone is talking about the cost of living, this administration eliminated the most affordable repayment plan in history,” he said. “Data shows we are headed toward mass default rates in the near future. Without an affordable repayment option, the situation will only get worse.”

The more than 7 million borrowers currently enrolled in SAVE will face higher monthly payments and could lose out on progress toward loan forgiveness, Zampini said in a statement yesterday. The settlement creates uncertainty for borrowers and leaves key questions unanswered, she said.

In 2025, Open Campus seeded and supported local reporting on the Trump administration's effort to reshape higher education institutions in communities across the country.

If you find our coverage helpful in navigating the shifting landscape of higher ed, please consider making a gift today.

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Elsewhere on Open Campus

Youngstown State University (Amy Morona/Signal Ohio)

From Ohio: Amy Morona, our reporter at Signal Ohio, featured Ronald Domen, a 1972 Youngstown State University alumnus who had planned to make a $100,000 gift to the university — until the state enacted a Florida-style higher-ed reform package.

The law requires faculty to publicly post their syllabi; bans faculty strikes; and creates new curriculum requirements. Domen sees it as “one group of people running around telling another group how to learn things and how to be educated and what books they can read.”

It’s just one example of the ripple effect of the law, which is yet another example of state legislators exerting influence over public universities. The university foundation declined to comment.

From North Carolina: Black students feel unwelcome at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Brianna Atkinson reported at our partner WUNC. Enrollment of Black students has declined — junior Samuel Scarborough said he’s now sometimes the only Black student in his classes.

Over the summer the university closed a lounge where the Black Student Movement gathered. Administrators said it the move was necessary to comply with federal guidelines but students say it adds to their isolation.

“That’s a problem that people feel less encouraged to find community at Carolina,” said UNC-Chapel Hill’s student body president, Adolfo Alvarez. “That just does the whole opposite of what colleges are built for.”

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Photo by Aaron Lefler on Unsplash

The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that growth in “math occupations” — where workers regularly use arithmetic to make calculations and analyze data — is set to outpace growth in other fields over the next decade. 

Yet colleges are enrolling students who arrive with weaker math skills than ever before. 

📚 Read more: With test optional now the norm in college admissions, another gatekeeper rises: calculus (via our partner WBEZ Chicago) 

Journalist Derek Thompson explored this phenomenon in a recent episode of his podcast Plain English. Professors he spoke to argued that it’s occurring for a number of reasons: the growth of cellphone use that’s distracting young people, a pandemic-induced shift to remote learning and away from standardized testing, and rampant grade inflation at the high school level. 

📚 Read more: College students and professors contend with hangover from virtual high school (via our partner Pittsburgh’s Public Source) 

These factors combined are making it hard for colleges to assess in the admissions process whether students are truly ready for college-level math. 

Thus, students are arriving on campus without the skills they need. George Mason University overhauled its summer math program because students arriving to calculus class couldn’t do basic algebra. Far more students are signing up for remedial math at the University of California San Diego than ever before. 

Further, in the last five years, the number of UC San Diego students whose math skills are below the high-school level has increased nearly thirtyfold, according to a report from a group of administrators and faculty tasked with creating a new admissions framework that better responds to this reality.

In addition to setting students up for struggles, these skill gaps strain faculty. 

“If we take seriously our mission as an engine of social mobility, we must be prepared to support students who have been underserved by their prior schooling. But our capacity is not limitless,” the UC San Diego admissions working group said last month. “Especially now, when our resources become more constrained, we cannot take on more remedial education than we can responsibly and effectively deliver.”

Math skills matter. Improving a child’s math skills boosts earnings later in life more than similar improvements in reading, health, or family relationships, according to an Urban Institute report. 

Several states are testing potential solutions:

• In Texas, more than half of the state’s third graders aren’t reading or doing math at grade level. Sneha Dey, our pathways reporter at the Texas Tribune highlighted two proposals that would provide those struggling students with extra support, as early as kindergarten. Lawmakers eventually wrapped those measures into H.B. 2, the broader school-funding package that Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law over the summer. 

• In California, the UC San Diego admissions working group proposed creating a “math index” — based on a student’s transcript, courses, grades, and high school — to more accurately predict the likelihood they’d need remedial courses if admitted.  

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Elsewhere on Open Campus

Oscar Haro Rodriguéz, left, works on a car as José Ruiz, center, talks to their teacher, Miles Tokheim, during an Auto 3 dual enrollment class last month. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)

From Wisconsin: Dual enrollment — where high schoolers take college courses for credit — is growing in Wisconsin and across the country. But a recent rule change in the state means that these classes need teachers with the qualifications of college instructors. For most, that would require enrolling in graduate school, even if they already have a master’s degree.

It’s a tough sell, even with the state offering to reimburse for the cost, found Natalie Yahr and Miranda Dunlap, our pathways reporters at our partner Wisconsin Watch.

“You’re asking people who are well educated to begin with to go back to school, which takes time and effort, and their reward for that is they get to teach a dual credit class,” said Mark McQuade, Appleton Area School District’s assistant superintendent of assessment, curriculum and instruction.

From Pittsburgh: Graduate students at the University of Pittsburgh say protecting academic freedom — which allows professors and researchers the ability to study and teach their subjects without fear of censorship — is one of the core pillars of their union negotiations, reports Maddy Franklin at our partner Pittsburgh’s Public Source.

Academic freedom usually extends to students only in their right to learn. The university has said that it isn’t applicable to grad students.

“It’d be impossible to kind of maintain an environment conducive to learning and research if we are just constantly worried about being disciplined for our teaching methods or any research decisions,” said Lauren Wewer, a Pitt Ph.D. candidate and chair of the union’s bargaining committee.

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Declining numbers of international students coming to study in the U.S. hurts local economies, according to new data released this week. 

International students’ economic contributions declined by $1.1 billion this fall, costing the U.S. nearly 23,000 jobs, NAFSA and JB International found. Those figures are based on a 17% decline in international student enrollment. 

Much of that decline was among graduate and non-degree students, according to the data. A slight increase in undergraduate enrollment this fall bolstered the overall numbers. There are still more than 1 million international students in the U.S.

It’s been a tense time for international students at colleges in the U.S. In the spring, President Donald Trump’s visa revocation and sudden reversal left many reeling, as our Jessica Priest reported in Texas. Trump has also limited visa interviews, told some universities to cap their international student enrollment, imposed travel restrictions on visitors from 19 countries, and made H1-B visas — which allow educated foreign citizens to work in “specialty occupations” — more expensive.

The U.S. must adopt policies to attract and retain international students and realize that job opportunities for them after graduation “are essential to our standing as the top destination for global talent,” said Fanta Aw, NAFSA executive director and CEO. 

“Otherwise, international students will increasingly choose to go elsewhere—to the detriment of our economy, excellence in research and innovation, and global competitiveness and engagement,” Aw said in a release earlier this week. 

Our reporters have been detailing the declines in international students on the campuses they cover — including DePaul University in Illinois and IU Indianapolis. 

[Read more: Case Western Reserve, University of Cincinnati downplay international college student data online] 

A separate report on international students released this week by the Institute of International Education found that their numbers were decreasing even before Trump took office: International student enrollment dropped by 7% in the 2024 school year, according to the report. 

These declines matter — not just for college’s bottom lines, but for the broader economy. International students contributed $42.9 billion to the U.S. economy and supported more than 355,000 jobs last year, according to NAFSA. 

The pre-Trump slump “suggests colleges face other headwinds, such as a slowing global economy, growing competition from nontraditional education hubs, and lingering unease because of the China Initiative,” in addition to current political turmoil, Karin Fischer, the Chronicle of Higher Education’s international education reporter, wrote in her newsletter this week.

India remains the country that sends the most students to the U.S. Marcello Fantoni, Kent State’s vice president of global education, travelled there last spring to talk with prospective students, our Amy Morona reported at Signal Ohio. He told them Kent State is still welcoming — one of the few things he can control amid the broader federal policy changes. 

Still, he said Trump’s actions influenced how the students he spoke with viewed America.

“There is damage done there, and it will take a long time to be fixed,” he told Amy. “A long time.”  

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Elsewhere on Open Campus

Shay Wiltshire and her mentor, technician Zach Williams, peer into a car’s engine on Nov. 6, 2025, at the Land Rover service center in Fort Worth. (McKinnon Rice/Fort Worth Report)

From Fort Worth: McKinnon Rice at our partner Fort Worth Report visited students who received paid, two-year auto technician internships through a partnership between Autobahn Fort Worth and Tarrant County College. 

It’s a growing field in the area and offers opportunities to make good money without much college: “A technician hired after an internship starts out earning $24 to $30 per hour, based on their performance, and the wage grows as skills do — highly skilled technicians can make as much as $250,000 to $300,000 per year,” McKinnon wrote.

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The Trump administration has offered the University of Texas at Austin access to preferential federal funding in exchange to agreeing to several conditions. (Photo: Manoo Sirivelu/The Texas Tribune)

President Donald Trump’s administration took another step this month to pressure university leaders by offering them a deal: agree to our terms, and get priority access to federal funds.

The terms of the compact include some of the administration’s core higher-ed policy positions. Universities that sign it would agree to freeze tuition for five years, cap international student enrollment, end grade inflation, and commit to strict definitions of gender.

It’s the latest example of how the administration is trying to wield influence on campuses across the country.

And, it’s not particularly popular, according to polling released this week by Quinnipiac University: 57% of respondents opposed increasing the federal government’s role in university operations and only 12% strongly supported it. (The results of the 1,519-person telephone survey were shared with the Chronicle of Higher Education.)

Several research institutions initially offered Trump’s deal have rejected it, including the University of Virginia. More than 60% of respondents to the Quinnipiac poll said colleges shouldn’t align with Trump in exchange for preferential funding.

On the flip side, Florida’s New College — the once-quirky liberal arts school that was at the center of Gov. Ron DeSantis’s conservative overhaul of higher ed — said this week it hopes to be the first university to sign on.

As our reporters at the Tampa Bay Times have written, the college’s identity has shifted drastically over the last two years. DeSantis recast its board of trustees, who promptly fired the president and replaced her with Richard Corcoran, the former Florida House speaker. The school also abolished its gender studies program; denied some faculty members tenure; and dismantled its diversity, equity, and inclusion office.

[Read more: New College signals changes with new courses, mission statement via the Tampa Bay Times]

In a statement, Corcoran highlighted the fact that the steps the college has taken over the last two and a half years are aligned with the administration’s ideals.

“We have no affirmative action or DEI, and we have been building a campus where open dialogue and the marketplace of ideas are at the forefront of everything we do. We believe a student’s success comes from their character and their merit, not their race, gender, or sexual orientation, and we would be honored to sign the Trump administration’s compact,” Corcoran said.

The University of Texas at Austin was among the group initially asked to sign the compact. Officials said earlier this month that they were honored to be considered, and haven’t yet said whether or not they’ll sign. Talks between the system and the White House are said to be ongoing.

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Elsewhere on Open Campus

Jayron Cummings cuts wire to length before stripping the ends to connect a light fixture as part of a 16-week construction class called the Nehemiah Project. (Photo: Doug McSchooler for Mirror Indy)

From Indianapolis: The Nehemiah Project is a 16-week construction course aimed at giving young people in Indianapolis hands-on training. Participants must be within the ages of 18 and 24 and face some sort of barrier to getting a job, such as being a parent or formerly incarcerated, Claire Rafford reports at our partner Mirror Indy.

The course also teaches more than just construction skills. Participants are encouraged to process trauma they’ve experienced through conversations and class activities.

It’s that aspect that is most appealing to Arthur Neely. Neely is raising three young children and got out of prison earlier this year. Coming to class and talking about his feelings is a stress-reliever, he told Claire.

“It’s kind of like therapy to me,” Neely said.

From San Antonio: Palo Alto College is the only community college in San Antonio offer a cosmetology operator program, and with lower tuition than name-brand for-profit programs, its appeal is growing, writes Danya Pérez at our partner the San Antonio Report.

Palo Alto’s Cosmetology Program Director Lydia Hannawi said she expected to have about 20 to 30 prospective students stop by during a recent open house — instead they received about 80.

The program has grown since it started in 2015, likely due at least in part to the fact that it costs thousands of dollars less than similar courses at places like Aveda and Paul Mitchell.

For-profit cosmetology programs are often criticized for churning out students who go on to learn less than the average high school graduate (something Lisa Kurian Philip wrote about at our partner WBEZ last year.)

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Students in the Midwest can face particularly significant financial barriers when paying for college, according to a new analysis from the National College Attainment Network. 

The college-access nonprofit looked at Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin to measure unmet financial need for students in the region. In every one of those states except Illinois and Minnesota, the difference between what students owe and what they can afford to pay when going to college is greater than the national average of $1,555, according to the analysis. 

Students attending public universities in two of the states — Ohio and Wisconsin — have affordability gaps of more than twice that national average. Our reporters in those places, Amy Morona at Signal Ohio and Natalie Yahr at Wisconsin Watch dug deeper into these findings this week. 

The nonprofit considers a college affordable if the total cost of attendance (plus $300 for emergencies) is less than or equal to the average amount they receive in scholarships, grants, student loans, summer wages, and family contributions. 

Source: National College Attainment Network’s affordability gap analysis

None of the public universities in Wisconsin or Ohio are considered affordable, according to the analysis. Students at four-year universities in Wisconsin faced a $3,549 gap and those in Ohio saw a $5,138 gap — both far above the national average. 

“Affordability gaps shouldn't be the barrier that is blocking students from achieving a bachelor's degree, if that's the path that they are hoping to pursue,” Louisa Woodhouse, a senior associate with NCAN and author of the Great Lakes report, told Amy at Signal.

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Nearly 90% of Wisconsin’s technical colleges were unaffordable, according to the analysis. A spokeswoman told Wisconsin Watch’s Natalie that the report raises valid concerns about affordability, but said the study may not accurately reflect students at the state’s tech colleges, who are often working full-time and going to school part-time. 

++ Long wait for a dental appointment? Wisconsin tech colleges are working to fix that (by Miranda Dunlap at our partner Wisconsin Watch)

Meanwhile, Illinois colleges are more affordable because of the state’s relatively high investment. Just about a quarter of funding for public higher ed in the state comes from net tuition revenue, compared to 48.5% on average in the rest of the Midwest, according to the analysis.

The study also highlighted Minnesota’s free-tuition program, North Star Promise, for helping make its four-year institutions more affordable than the national average. We wrote about North Star Promise last year, in partnership with MinnPost. To qualify, families must earn less than $80,000 a year. The state recently announced the program helped 53,000 Minnesotans last year. 

North Star Promise, like many other promise programs, is what’s known as “last-dollar,” meaning it will close whatever gap exists between a student’s tuition bill and the aid they’ve already received. In our reporting we found that students still struggled with costs that aren’t covered by the program, such as on-campus housing. 

The group also called on states to increase higher-ed funding. When colleges are forced to rely heavily on net tuition revenue, the burden is passed on to families. But cuts to federal safety-net programs put pressure on state budgets — often leading to higher-ed funding cuts, NCAN warned, saying “now is the time for states to bolster their investments.”

Elsewhere on Open Campus

Workers cross a street as smoke billows from a fire at the Martinez Refinery Company in Martinez in Contra Costa County on Feb. 1, 2025. (Photo by Jose Carlos Fajardo, Bay Area News Group)

From California: Jobs in California’s fossil fuel industry are disappearing, leaving its workers unlikely to find another one that pays as well. Many of them lack a college degree and Trump’s tax cuts for oil and gas companies are neither going to save their jobs nor create opportunities to train for new ones, writes Adam Echelman at our partner CalMatters.

“You have people earning between $80,000 to $200,000 a year, and almost everyone is a high school graduate and that’s it,” said Wilfredo Cruz, a worker at the Phillips 66 refinery complex who expects to lose his job in the coming months. “To go out and look for another job that’s even somewhat comparable, it just doesn’t exist.”

The state has set up a $30 million pot of money to help train refinery workers for new jobs. Cruz is using those funds to cover the tuition costs of an online, year-long cybersecurity program he’s enrolled in at the University of California San Diego.

From Chicago: Lisa Kurian Philip at our partner WBEZ investigated University of Illinois campuses paying a for-profit company, known as an online program manager, for each student it recruits to online programs. Critics of the practice say these companies prey on vulnerable students by using high-pressure sale tactics and inflated job placement data.

“The student thinks they are talking to someone who is giving academic or enrollment advice like you would expect from an admissions counselor, but really they’re talking to a salesperson whose only goal is to close the deal,” said Stephanie Hall, a fellow with the consumer advocacy group Protect Borrowers who has researched these companies. “So it’s not necessarily going to get that [student] information about whether that degree is a fit for what they need in life.”

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Participants make seed balls during the school garden leadership training workshop hosted by the University of Florida’s Family Nutrition Program and Florida Agriculture in the Classroom. (Chris Urso / Tampa Bay Times)

University-run nutrition education programs are closing around the country following Trump administration funding cuts. That means low-income families are losing access to information about healthy eating and cooking.

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-Education, known as SNAP-Ed, was cut in a sweeping domestic policy package that President Donald Trump signed into law in July. It’s a program that has existed since 1992 and was designed for food stamp recipients. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has spent more than $9 billion on the program since its inception, Reuters reported.

Karla Shelnutt, an associate dean and a professor of family, youth and community sciences at the University of Florida, spoke to Lucy Marques, one of our reporters at our partner The Tampa Bay Times, for a story about the impact of the loss of SNAP-Ed dollars.

SNAP-Ed programming is all about getting “little hands in the dirt, and helping them to feel the dirt and learn where it comes from, and then grow the food and taste the food,” Shelnutt told Lucy.

The University of Florida’s extension service runs one of two SNAP-ed programs in the state. It will shut down this month as a result of the funding cut. More than 70 program employees across 31 counties will be laid off, Lucy reported.

Why does that matter? Lucy put it plainly: “This closure means families across Florida will lose access to information about healthy eating habits and how to prepare fresh foods. School districts could be left without outside expertise and students will miss workshops about where their food comes from.”

SNAP-Ed programs are ending across the country. Here are a few other examples:

• The University of Minnesota Extension laid off 60 SNAP-Ed educators in July, according to its student newspaper the Minnesota Daily.

• The University of Wisconsin-Madison Extension began winding down its nutrition-education operations over the summer, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. (Congressional Republicans representing Wisconsin told the newspaper they view SNAP-Ed as a waste of money.)

• Indy Hunger Network is scrambling to fill the 40% of its budget that comes from SNAP-Ed, WTHR reported last month.

“When you teach people how to eat healthier, the students do better in school, the parents do better at work, that feeds the economy,” Mark Lynch, director of advocacy, told the TV station. “Everybody lives longer and stays out of the doctor’s offices or the ERs.”

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Elsewhere on Open Campus

For students in Nebraska’s Kimball County, college is far away.

A Flourish data visualization by Flatwater Free Press

public.flourish.studio/visualisation/25279166

From Nebraska: Just 13% of Nebraska’s 3,000-person Kimball County have a four-year degree. College doesn’t always make sense for its young people. Most colleges are hundreds of miles away, for one thing. And some of the jobs in town — like working at the waste incinerator — don’t require a degree.

Kimball County High doesn't push a "college-for-everyone mentality," Danielle Reader, its principal, said. “We don’t want students to go to college just to say they’re in college without a plan. I always tell them you’re allowed to change your mind. And what we try and do here is prepare them so that they don’t close any doors before they know they want the door to be open.”

We worked on this story in partnership with Flatwater Free Press.

From Texas: The public university systems across Texas are rushing to review course materials and syllabi in an attempt to stave off controversy, following the firestorm over a secret recording of a gender identity lecture at Texas A&M. Jessica Priest at our partner the Texas Tribune asked system leaders what steps they’re taking and what will be done next.

++ Texas Tech’s limits on gender identity discussion deepen fears of politics breaching academic freedom (via our partner the Texas Tribune)

++ Also in Texas, a bit of good news: El Paso Community College received several million in TRIO funds late last month, despite a broader funding freeze across the country, Danny Perez at our partner El Paso Matters reports.

From Ohio: Amy Morona at our partner Signal Ohio found that two of the state’s research universities — Case Western Reserve University and the University of Cincinnati — are no longer publicly touting international enrollment numbers, a shift from past years.

James Murphy, director of post-secondary policy at the national advocacy group Education Reform Now, said it “certainly seems likely” that the change may be because the universities want to avoid scrutiny in the current political climate.  

“It is hard for me not to imagine legal counsel advising the administration, and then the admissions office or the enrollment management office, to be cautious about calling attention to international enrollment,” he said.  

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About half of faculty who responded to an AAUP survey said they wouldn’t recommend coming to work in the South because of the political climate. (Kelly Sikkema/Unsplash)

The political climate in the South is prompting faculty members to seek jobs elsewhere, according to a survey released last week by the American Association of University Professors regional chapters.

The survey included responses from Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas.

About 55% of the survey’s 4,000 respondents wouldn’t say their state is a desirable place to work. And about a quarter said they plan to apply for jobs in another state in the coming year, a percentage which has stayed consistent in surveys the last two years.

[Read more: Who owns a public university syllabus? (via our partner WUNC)]

The survey was designed to capture how state and federal pressure is impacting the day-to-day work and recruitment of faculty members, according to a release. (The survey responses were shared with Open Campus.)

We’ve seen one such example of this pressure playing out in Texas recently. A dean and a department head were demoted and an instructor was fired at Texas A&M University after a video circulated showing a student confronting a professor over LGBTQ-related content shown in class. In the video, a student is heard objecting to a professor teaching that there are more than two genders, Jessica Priest reported at our partner the Texas Tribune. (Yesterday Mark A. Welsh III, the university’s president, announced he would step down amid the turmoil.)

[Read more: Faculty, advocacy groups fear Texas A&M firing threatens academic freedom (via our partner the Texas Tribune)]

Faculty members said in the AAUP survey that video recordings of class content are one of their sources of worry. “I no longer record video lectures for online courses because I do not want them used against me,” one respondent said. Another called them “‘ambush videos’ which take course and class discussions out of context to attack faculty.”

And, the climate on college campuses has grown even more strained since Charlie Kirk, a 31-year-old conservative activist who founded Turning Point USA, was killed last week during a speaking event at Utah Valley University. “Kirk’s movement and message increasingly occupy the mainstream, fitting neatly into President Trump’s larger narrative that colleges and universities are unwelcome to conservatives and ought to be called out or even punished for it,” the Chronicle of Higher Education reported at the time.

(The AAUP survey was conducted and released before Kirk’s death, so the responses don’t reflect any shifts since then.)

A growing number of colleges have fired or suspended employees for online posts reacting to Kirk’s death. At Clemson University, for example, an employee was fired and two faculty members were removed from the classroom for making social media posts about Kirk’s death, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported earlier this week. The decision followed Republicans in the state legislature and congressional delegation threatening to yank the university’s funding if it didn’t fire employees who “celebrate” Kirk’s death, the Chronicle reported.

[Read more: Chicago-area college students call for end to political violence after Charlie Kirk’s killing (via our partner WBEZ)]

To be sure, there has been tension over free speech and politics on campuses since before Kirk’s death. In a shift from last year’s AAUP survey, the political climate of the South replaced salary as the main reason why faculty members said they’d look for jobs elsewhere.

[Read more: 6 flashpoints in the history of academic freedom in Pittsburgh (via our partner Public Source)]

An open-ended question asked the faculty members to describe how attacks on higher ed are impacting their work. (Faculty members provided information such as their rank and state of residence, but remained anonymous in the survey.) Here are a few responses:

• “Attacks have instilled fear in our graduate students and led some to reconsider seeking an academic position in the U.S.”

• “I had an NSF grant terminated.”

• “I am watching what I am sharing with students as some may (and already have) report my department's texts and documents to lawmakers.”

• “I find myself questioning the way I phrase historic events related to, but not limited to, slavery, colonization, oppression, segregation, etc.”

• “No direct impacts (yet) but anxiety is high and faith in admin [sic] doing the right thing is very low.“

• “It has the effect of making things that used to be easy, much harder.” 

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Elsewhere on Open Campus

Gateway Technical College in Kenosha, Wis., is one of four Hispanic-serving institutions in the state that could lose millions of dollars in federal aid. (Courtesy of Gateway Technical College)

Our reporters in Wisconsin and Puerto Rico are reporting on the impact of the administration’s decision to end long-standing grant programs that support Hispanic-serving institutions.

That amounts to $20.7 million in cuts to eight Puerto Rican universities, reports Víctor Rodriguez Velázquez at our partner Centro de Periodismo Investigativo. Nearly all — 97% — of college students in Puerto Rico are Hispanic.

Natalie Yahr at our partner Wisconsin Watch spoke with several colleges that have worked for years to reach the 25% enrollment threshold required to be considered Hispanic-serving. They’ll continue supporting those students, whether or not they receive additional federal funds.

“For us, it is a natural reflection of the community that we serve,” said Jeffrey Morin, president of the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design.

Hispanic students are the fastest growing population of college-bound students, Natalie reported. Those who support specific funding for HSIs say it helps a group that has been historically under-served in higher ed, and when those students graduate, it helps the economy. The Trump administration says the grant programs violate the Constitution.

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Many Americans feel stuck as a result of the housing market – either tied to a home with a low mortgage rate they wont get again, or priced out of buying altogether. (Tierra Mallorca on Unsplash)

The Wall Street Journal ran a story late last month headlined “Nobody’s Buying Homes, Nobody’s Switching Jobs—and America’s Mobility Is Stalling.” The article highlights some stagnation playing out right now in the housing and job market. 

A quick recap: The housing market is frozen for many would-be sellers and thus would-be buyers right now. Those lucky enough to buy or refinance when mortgage interest rates plummeted below 3% in 2020 now aren’t budging, as rates have since climbed. And those higher rates mean many are staying put in too-small houses or rentals.

That’s affecting the job market, too, the piece argues. 

While none of this is exactly new news, Robert Kelchen — professor and head of University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies — had an interesting observation. Tight housing and job markets affect higher ed, at a time when things are already tense.

Faculty and administrators could be just as constrained by the golden handcuffs of a 2% interest rate as everybody else. That makes them less likely to move for a new job, Kelchen said, especially since they’re unlikely to get the type of salary increase they’d need to offset more pricey mortgage payments. Plus, even finding an affordable house in the first place could be a challenge right now. 

All of this contributes to what Kelchen called a “hunker-down mindset” in higher ed. 

“Even if the institutions are giving out pay raises, the pay raises aren't matching  housing costs,” Kelchen said. “And then that creates a pressure to stay.” 

While that might seem like a “first-world problem,” it also affects college and university staff members, Kelchen told me. Often the only way for staff members to make more money is to move universities — there aren’t the same in-house growth opportunities as there are for faculty. But that’s easier said than done. Rents have increased also, and perks like employee tuition remission is one of the first things to go when budgets get tight, Kelchen said. 

The job market has slowed, too. Hiring is weak and there is less turnover overall, which affects new college grads in particular, according to The Journal story. Those who start out underemployed are more than three times as likely to still be underemployed a decade after graduation than those who quickly found a good job, according to a 2024 Burning Glass Institute study.

Grace Ahn, 25, was featured in the Journal story. She had hoped to go into marketing after graduating two years ago from California State University, Long Beach. She’s applied for dozens of roles, without any luck. She now makes $22 an hour as a social worker at a government contractor in Orange County. 

“At first I was so naive, so excited. I was like, the whole world is my oyster,” Ahn told The Journal. “The oyster has now expired.”

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The future of higher ed in San Antonio

Leigh Munsil (left), editor in chief of the San Antonio Report, moderated a conversation with the city’s seven university leaders. (Diego Medel / San Antonio Report)

Our partner the San Antonio Report convened the leaders of the city’s seven colleges and universities for a panel discussion yesterday. I got to travel for the event and visited the newsroom and Danya Pérez, our reporter there.

It was great to see the San Antonio Report convene this group:

• Hector Ochoa of Texas A&M San Antonio

• Taylor Eighmy of the University of Texas at San Antonio

• Abel Antonio Chávez of Our Lady of the Lake University

• Vanessa Beasley of Trinity University

• Winston Erevelles of St. Mary’s University

• Tom Evans of University of the Incarnate Word

• Mike Flores, chancellor of Alamo Colleges District

We know that most people go to college within 50 miles of home, and people who go to college have higher earnings potential over their lifetime than those who don’t. That means institutions like these play a critical role in who moves up the economic ladder, where good jobs develop, and how San Antonio grows.

I was struck during the conversation by how clearly the group articulated their role in this — and in particular, how clear-eyed they are about the fact that working together, rather than just competing, will help the city and students succeed.

“We all stand for more access,” said Vanessa Beasley, president of Trinity University. “More education for more people is good, full stop, wherever you go to school.”

Read Danya’s writeup of the panel. 

Elsewhere on Open Campus

The Texas Wedge Sculpture outside of the UTEP library. (Corrie Boudreaux/El Paso Matters)

From El Paso: The Justice Department has decided not to defend the constitutionality of Hispanic-serving institutions, such as the University of Texas at El Paso, putting at risk the extra federal funding they receive.

A university is considered Hispanic-serving if its student body is at least 25% Hispanic. HSis educate two-thirds of all Hispanic undergraduates in the country. The loss of those funds would worsen access to opportunity for all students, Deborah A. Santiago, co-founder and CEO of Excelencia In Education, a national nonprofit dedicated to Latino success in higher education, told Danny Perez at our partner El Paso Matters.

“I think institutions across this country that are already feeling challenges of economic issues and funding are going to be further challenged, and it could mean decreased access to many people across this country, and that goes beyond Hispanics,” Santiago said.

From Chicago: The Trump administration has limited the amount of federal debt students can take on to get graduate degrees, a change that could imperil the already fragile pipeline into social work, Lisa Kurian Philip at our partner WBEZ reports.

From North Carolina: More than $12 million has gone into repairs and restoration for Warren Wilson College in Western North Carolina following the damage of Hurricane Helene a year ago. Brianna Atkinson, our reporter who works in partnership with WUNC and NC Local, followed up with the president of the college to hear how recovery is going.

“We have made impressive progress, great accomplishments, but the devastation that Helene brought on us was so significant that we still have issues that we are grappling with,” said President Damian Fernández.

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Katerin, a graduate student at the University of Houston, saw her tuition bill almost double after a federal court ruling in June ended the in-state tuition benefit for DACA students. "I saw the email when I got to work ... I literally cried. I felt like I was in a cage, " she said. Credit: Hope Mora for The Texas Tribune

All last year, then-candidate Donald Trump campaigned on a restricting immigration. We’ve seen his administration follow through on that promise. In April, Trump issued an executive order which, among other things, bars undocumented people from receiving federal benefits. 

Like many of Trump’s policies, that’s affecting colleges, too. Today, 18 states have policies in place that provide in-state tuition and some state financial aid or scholarships for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients and undocumented students, according to the Higher Ed Immigration Portal. But that number is lower than it was at the start of the year. Many states introduced bills to prevent these students from accessing in-state tuition, which is less expensive than out-of-state tuition, and some have already removed these policies altogether.

As students across the country begin a new academic year, we’re beginning to see the impact of Trump’s immigration crackdown. While some red states have rushed to comply, others are waiting.

It’s important to remember that most students don’t pay the full sticker price — receiving institutional, state, or federal aid that lowers the cost of college. Undocumented students and DACA recipients don’t qualify for federal aid, including the Pell grants that go to families making less than $50,000 a year. For them, these higher tuition rates could be barriers that keep them from going to college.  

A spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Higher Education told Chalkbeat Colorado’s Jason Gonzales the executive order “does not provide enough details to truly know what federal actions will be taken,” and local universities have yet to make changes. Gov. Jared Polis told Jason in a statement that Colorado remains committed to ensuring the state remains a destination for all learners.

In Ohio, undocumented students are barred from receiving in-state tuition, but DACA recipients are eligible at some public universities. While some schools in the state openly embrace these students, institutions are reticent to speak out about it, Amy Morona reported for Signal Ohio.

“We’re not going to speculate on specific policy changes,” an Ohio State spokesperson told Amy.

Florida was one of the first this year to take steps to bar undocumented students and DACA recipients from accessing in-state tuition rates. As our partners at the Tampa Bay Times reported, Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a press conference after he signed the bill into law that providing undocumented students in-state tuition “is a slap in the face to taxpayers.” It went into effect in July.

In Texas, Jessica Priest has closely followed the rollout of similar changes. The Justice Department successfully sued to overturn a 2001 law in Texas that allowed undocumented students to get in-state tuition at public universities. Jessica and her colleague Eleanor Kilbanoff wrote a helpful explainer about who this affects, what students can do, and the historical background that got us to this point. She’s also dug into the confusion students face due to individual schools’ interpretation of the law. Advocates told her students’ — DACA recipients especially — ability to continue paying in-state tuition rates can hinge on where they attend college, not whether they qualify.

“What we’ve seen is a chaotic, haphazard and inconsistent implementation across the state with grave emotional consequences for students … but more importantly, with dire consequences.”

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Elsewhere on Open Campus

(Richard Ricciardi/Duke, via Flickr)

From North Carolina: Some North Carolina universities are increasing federal lobbying spending as the Trump administration threatens cuts to crucial higher education funding, Brianna Atkinson reports.

From California: The state poured millions of dollars into increasing the number of women pursuing STEM degrees. Adam Echleman reports the rate of women who attain those degrees has hardly improved, according to an analysis of colleges’ data by the Public Policy Institute of California on behalf of CalMatters.

From Wisconsin: Miranda Dunlap visited Northeast Wisconsin Technical College, which overhauled its course offerings to provide eight-week classes almost exclusively. Administrators and instructors say the intensive pace helps students perform better and prevents them from dropping out when they face hardships outside of school.

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Photo by Andy Feliciotti on Unsplash

President Donald Trump’s administration has fired nearly 1,400 Department of Education employees as part of an effort to dismantle the agency. Some of those staffers had their last day earlier this month. 

There’s already eveidence that the staff reduction is hurting colleges and students, especially low-income and first-generation students, said Jon Fansmith, senior vice president for government relations and national engagement at the American Council on Education (ACE).

Financial aid administrators are struggling to get questions answered, as are students who have questions that are too complex to be addressed through the department’s AI chat bot, Fansmith said. 

A particular pain point is the closure of many regional student aid and civil rights offices, Fansmith told me this week. Those are places most colleges would go to get answers to common questions. Things that were once routine, such as renewing agreements that allow institutions to receive and pay out federal financial aid, are now getting backlogged, he said.

“The start of the semester is not very far away. Having these problems now is really concerning,” he said. 

[Read more: Big changes are coming to student loan repayment. Here’s how to prepare. (via our partner WBEZ Chicago)] 

Plus, most colleges don’t have a general counsel on staff, and previously relied on being able to get gut checks about legal compliance from the Education Department, Fansmith said. 

Now colleges are “having to rely on spending more time on outside counsel, more money on outside counsel, trying to develop ways to ensure that they're addressing concerns that they may have in the absence of actual clear help,” Fansmith said. 

The challenges aren’t just at the institution level, either. Students are struggling to get answers to questions they may run into when completing the FAFSA, which can delay their college applications and reduces the amount of time they have to assess financial aid offers and make a decision, Fansmith said. That’s a particular issue for low-income students. 

“If you need to spend an extra week or two weeks in follow-up and you're not getting an answer, the likelihood that you might actually apply to school and follow through with it is a lot less,” he said. “These are real barriers to entry that have a real impact.”

Financial-aid administrators who answered a national survey in May reported seeing an increase in student questions, confusion, and frustration. Students are unsure about how delays will affect their enrollment or eligibility for programs such as Public Service Loan Forgiveness, and in many cases, institutions “are unable to provide clear answers due to a lack of federal updates or functioning support systems,” according to the survey.

Fansmith called the issues “self-inflicted wounds.” Congress should require that the department live up to its statutory obligations, with proper oversight. And, it’s not partisan, he said: “This is just, are the people within the government doing the work they are required to do in a way that supports American citizens?” 

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Elsewhere on Open Campus

Zayira Jordán-Conde is the new president of the University of Puerto Rico. (Credit: Brandon Cruz González / Centro de Periodismo Investigativo)

From Puerto Rico: Zayira Jordán-Conde, the new president of the University of Puerto Rico, hopes to attract Latino students and second or third generation Puerto Ricans living on the U.S. mainland. 

She spoke of these plans in an exclusive sitdown interview with Víctor Rodríguez Velázquez, our reporter at our partner Centro de Periodismo Investigativo. 

Jordán-Conde takes on the top job at a pivotal time: the university now has half the budget it had a decade ago, and faces the loss of millions of dollars in federal funding, in part due to Trump’s policies. 

From Ohio: Amy Morona, our reporter at Signal Ohio, dug into the promise that  officials from Say Yes to Education— a national scholarship program — made six years ago when starting it up in Cleveland. 

Local foundations and businesses had raised tens of millions of dollars for the scholarships, which were part of a pledge that every qualified student graduating from Cleveland Metropolitan School District would get free tuition to a four- or two-year college. 

Just over 500 of those students — from a district that graduates about 1,930 students a year — have earned a degree or credential since Say Yes began in Cleveland. 

Say Yes Cleveland’s interim executive director, Catherine Tkachyk, said she doesn’t categorize that number of graduates as “good, bad or indifferent.”

“That’s the number that we have,” she said in a recent interview with Signal. “And we’re going to continue to make improvements and continue to try and expand on that number.”

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Source: Center for American Progress

While President Donald Trump’s disputes with ultra-selective private institutions such as Columbia University have drawn lots of attention, new data released this week show that his administration has mainly focused on targeting the funding at public universities. 

Public universities have seen $2.1 billion in federal funding targeted, compared to $1.2 billion at private universities, according to new analysis from the Center for American Progress. All told, the cuts have affected 600 colleges and universities.

And, those cuts aren’t happening solely in blue states — Republican- and Democrat-governed states are largely facing similar headwinds, according to the analysis. Among the 10 states that have lost the most funding per student, four have Republican governors and six have Democratic governors.

This doesn’t solely affect institutions, either. Cuts to research affect entire economies and regions. In North Carolina, to take just one example, research employed more than 11,000 people last year and generated $38 million in tax revenue.

“It’s a loss of immediate dollars, of advancing job preparedness programs and workforce development in renewable energy,” Christine Mahoney, a public policy professor at the University of Virginia, told Allie Pitchon, our reporter at Charlottesville Tomorrow, about the impact of losing a $20 million Environmental Protection Agency grant.

[Read more: The ripple effect of cuts to NIH research funding]

And as my colleague Charlotte West, our staff reporter covering higher ed in prisons, wrote earlier this week, many of the programs that the administration has cut or is considering cutting serve people who are particularly vulnerable: low-income students, first-generation students, older adults entering the workforce, and those who need basic literacy and job training. 

Many formerly incarcerated people fall into those categories, too. Kun Lyna “K” Tauch is one example. After getting out of prison, he began volunteering through California Justice Leaders, a partnership between AmeriCorps and a nonprofit that supports formerly incarcerated adults. The Trump administration slashed $400 million in AmeriCorps grant funding earlier this spring. 

“I believed that federal funding was stable, and based on that assumption, I made some big decisions for myself. I rented an apartment and bought a new car,” K wrote in a first-person essay we published earlier this week. 

Our Open Campus Local Network has been covering the on-the-ground impact of federal cuts, and will continue to do so. Charlotte rounded up some of this reporting in her newsletter, College Inside, earlier this week. I wanted to re-up it here.

Hundreds of new volunteers are sworn in for duty at a White House ceremony on Sept. 12, 2014. Photo: J. Scott Applewhite, AP Photo

As Adam Echelman, our workforce and community college reporter at CalMatters has reported, the future of AmeriCorps is unclear. While Congress approved money for the program's next fiscal year starting Aug. 1, the administration hasn't released those funds yet — and Trump's budget proposal eliminates AmeriCorps entirely after 2026.

While the Trump administration has touted the elimination of grants that don’t match its priorities — such as those that focus on diversity — job-training and anti-hunger programs have also come under threat:

• Natalie Yahr, one of our pathways reporters at Wisconsin Watch, found that workforce and adult education programs that provide job training and literacy instruction — including programs that educate people incarcerated in prisons and jails — are losing funding. The Trump administration froze $715 million in adult education funds nationwide, threatening programs that help adults complete high school, learn English, and improve their literacy skills.

• Claire Rafford, our reporter at Mirror Indy, explored the impact of eliminating the Senior Community Service Employment Program, which helps low-income adults learn job skills. In Indiana alone, the program serves 31 counties, and uncertainty over funding has already forced the state workforce development department to tell some workers not to report to their job sites while waiting for already-approved federal money.

• Maddy Franklin, our reporter at Pittsburgh’s Public Source, highlighted how cuts to Medicaid and SNAP included in Trump’s new domestic policy package could increase hunger on college campuses. Nearly 2 million people in Pennsylvania use SNAP, a portion of whom are college students, Maddy wrote. 

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Via Shutterstock

The “One Big Beautiful Bill” is hundreds of pages of legislation which lay out the Trump administration’s policy agenda signed into law. I’m particularly interested in five of them, where the bill addresses Pell grants.

While the bill worked its way through Congress, our reporters across the Local Network wrote about what the proposed changes to Pell grants put at stake for students in Texas, Mississippi and Colorado. While these funds survived without many of those changes, I’m interested to follow what will come of “Workforce Pell,” an idea that’s been around for years. The federal government introduced pilots of this kind of Pell grant in 2011, but the “One Big Beautiful Bill” now codifies the concept into federal law.

Workforce Pell allows these funds to be used towards short-term work training programs. It’s a continuation of a red meat issue for the Trump administration and state leaders across the country: Not everyone needs a traditional four-year degree, and there should be options for people to obtain skills and certifications that allow them to move into a job quickly.

This opens up a world of opportunity for training programs and certifications. So long as they’re recognized by an accrediting institution backed by the federal government, students can use Pell grants to enroll. 

“That would actually fund short-term training students to go into short-term training programs, beginning at 8 weeks. And that’s something that we’ve advocated for many years,” Alamo Colleges Chancellor Mike Flores told our reporter in San Antonio last week.

While there is optimism around the concept, the legislation’s timeline is ambitious. It states Workforce Pell will be implemented by July 1, 2026, in time for 2026-27 academic year

“This is an aggressive timeline,” writes Jobs for the Future, a a national nonprofit focused on education and workforce issues. “It is possible that the Department of Education may not be able to take all the steps necessary for implementation in less than a year.”

In the Education Department’s “2011 Pell Grant experiments,” results showed that students who were offered a Pell Grant to pay for short-term occupational training were more likely to enroll in further education than students who didn’t receive these grants, and program completion was also slightly higher. This is according to a November 2024 report from the Institute of Education Sciences, a department within the federal Department of Education.

One notable outcome: “Being offered an experimental Pell grant for a short-term occupational training program did not increase students’ prospects of being employed,” according to the report.

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Elsewhere on Open Campus

DePaul University student Maya Roman hands off a bag of condoms and other birth control to a volunteer who will deliver it to a student as part of a contraceptive delivery network just off campus.Lisa Kurian Philip/WBEZ

From Chicago: Lisa Kurian Philip profiled “Womb Service,” a student group at DePaul which runs a contraceptive delivery network for classmates at locations just off campus. University officials recently suspended the group from campus because of its affiliation with Planned Parenthood. Student leaders accuse DePaul of kowtowing to President Donald Trump.

From Charlottesville: Our newest reporter to join the Local Network spoke with University of Virginia faculty members after President Jim Ryan resigned suddenly on June 27. Allie Pitchon reported that after UVA’s board announced Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Jennifer “J.J.” Wagner Davis would serve in the interim, faculty decried the move as premature and they intend to fight Ryan’s ouster. You can also learn more about our new partner, Charlottesville Tomorrow, here.

From Indianapolis: The Senior Community Service Employment Program is a federal initiative that helps low-income adults over 55 learn new skills and build careers. Claire Rafford detailed how Hoosiers could be left in the lurch in a few months if widespread cuts to federal programs go through.

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The power of the Open Campus Local Network.

A hurricane-ravaged university library, now set for repairs. State and federal financial-aid  fraud protections, after rampant scams. Reworked legislation, in response to concerns from school districts.  

These are some changes recently brought about by the reporting of our Local Network in Puerto Rico, California, and Texas. A little more about them: 

• Víctor Rodríguez Velázquez’s reporting on the University of Puerto Rico’s library highlighted how it was moldy and leaking, years after the island was ravaged by Hurricane María. The upcoming repair project “represents a concrete and verifiable step toward fulfilling the institution’s commitment to preserving the valuable materials housed in our collections and improving environmental conditions for both users and staff,” Nancy Abreu Báez, the library’s director told him.  

• Adam Echelman has reported for more than a year on the financial-aid fraud playing out at California’s community colleges — scammers stole more than $10 million in federal financial aid and more than $3 million in state aid in the last year. This reporting is directly responsible for the state enacting reforms, which the federal government followed soon after. 

• And Texas lawmakers rewrote legislation giving districts more time to replace uncertified teachers, after Sneha Dey reported on the concerns of district leaders who said the bill would leave them with few options to fill their ranks amid a teacher shortage. 

We keep track of when our reporting leads to policy change, as well as how it influences people to take action, informs them, or connects them to each other.

That can look like Claire Rafford’s reporting in Indianapolis, which helped Black residents reconnect to former neighbors, after the expansion of Indiana University destroyed their homes. Or Lisa Kurian Philip’s work in Chicago, where listeners helped pay down the student loan debt of a young woman Lisa featured in a radio story.

I encouraged newsrooms to think about how their reporting — and how their journalists — increase social cohesion in their communities during a panel at INN Days earlier this month. (Nieman Lab wrote more about that panel here.) 

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Elsewhere on Open Campus

Shayna Meikle left teaching to follow her roller-skating dreams. She takes a spin with Elliott Fromm, general manager of her skating rink in Long Beach. (Brian Feinzimer/LAist)

From Los Angeles: We partnered with LAist on a story exploring the challenging road to becoming a teacher in California. The state requires 600 hours of time working in a classroom, more than many other places in the country. Many students take on debt to go through teacher-prep programs, and then juggle sometimes multiple jobs on top of teaching.

Shayna Meikle loved her middle school science students, but felt beat down by the demands of her program — and tempted by the fulfillment of teaching roller skating instead. She left her teacher-prep program halfway through and now owns two roller rinks and a skate shop.

Before making the change, she polled her nearly 300 students:  “Should I, your favorite teacher, leave you to do roller skating full time?” 

All but one student said yes. 

The rest told Meikle: “Go, Miss. Follow your dreams.”

From Pittsburgh: College athletes told Maddy Franklin at our partner PublicSource about how their lives have changed since being able to make money off their name, image, and likeness. 

“NIL made us all influencers,” said Cat Flood, a volleyball player who graduated earlier this year from the University of Pittsburgh. 

A.M., a 24-year-old graduate from Texas A&M University, said he had planned to return to the school to pursue a master’s degree but is now reassessing his options. (Danielle Villasana for The Texas Tribune)

From Texas: Jessica Priest at our partner The Texas Tribune spoke to four undocumented students whose education plans have been hampered by a recent ruling that blocks them from accessing in-state tuition rates. 

A.M., a recent Texas A&M University graduate, is hoping to complete a master’s degree in one of the 23 states that still offer in-state tuition. He is sad and scared about potentially moving away from his family and friends to do so. 

“It’s kind of like having to start from scratch, and all the connections I made here, I might not be able to see for a while,” he said.

Keep in touch

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Jay Baker sits in Millennium Park during his lunch break. He took out $5,000 in student loans to get an associate’s degree in paralegal studies and now works at a law firm downtown. Baker does not know how much his loan payments will be once the SAVE plan is eliminated.Lisa Kurian Philip/WBEZ

Earlier this year, the federal government slashed the Department of Education’s workforce. A new survey from the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) reveals telling consequences just a few months into these staffing changes. The respondents — financial aid professionals from 900 universities — reported communication breakdowns, delayed processing times, and overextended staff since the March staffing cuts, which also hit the Office of Federal Student Aid.

“ … Their most urgent worry is not internal workload — it is the risk that federal instability will undermine students’ access to aid and erode trust in the system itself,” NASFAA wrote.

This puts at risk the most vulnerable students who rely on access to federal financial aid to afford college. Without clear information or access to answers about things like the FAFSA, more students forego college or take on burdensome loans. 

For some of those borrowers, we’re seeing a different set of consequences. This month the government resumed collections on federal loans, and the results suggest confusion and shock from borrowers whose payments are more than 270 days past due. Credit scores dropped 100 points for 2.2 million delinquent student loan borrowers, the Washington Post reported this week. 

Our local network has reported on this in numerous ways:

• In Tampa, Ian Hodgson laid out answers to commonly asked questions about loan collections restarting.

• In Fort Worth, Shomial Ahmad spoke to a local banking executive for Bank of America who offered advice for borrowers about how to learn if their loans are in default and avoid collections.

• In Chicago, Lisa Kurian Philip is talking with locals who have student loan debt about how they’re navigating the uncertainty. 

Our network is growing

Please welcome Danya Pérez, our newest reporter in the local network! Danya started this week as the inaugural higher education reporter at the San Antonio Report.

We’re a nonprofit newsroom that relies on your support. If this type of reporting matters to you, donate to Open Campus today.

Elsewhere on Open Campus

Texas State University campus in San Marcos. Credit: Laura Skelding for The Texas Tribune

In Texas: The Legislature is in full swing. Jessica Priest is following bills that would give political appointees more control over universities’ courses and hiring; limit protests at public universities; and allow schools to pay their student-athletes.

In Tampa: It’s been a busy month for the revolving door of college leadership — at the University of Florida, this week Santa Ono was confirmed as the next president. At Pasco-Hernando State College, Florida Department of Juvenile Justice Secretary Eric Hall was named interim president. As Ian points out, Hall is the latest in a series of presidential picks in the state with ties to Tallahassee.

In Indianapolis: IU Indianapolis recently removed two prominent signs that read “Black Lives Matter” and “Discrimination has no place here” from its downtown campus. Claire Rafford reports this is a likely effort to comply with federal and state guidance surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion.

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The Scholarship Academy helps low-income students get scholarships to pay for college, guiding them through key steps like submitting the FAFSA. (Photo: Courtesy of Jessica Johnson)

The Georgia-based Scholarship Academy helps scores of low-income students access scholarships to pay for college. It equips them with knowledge about the financial-aid process, so they feel more confident and in control. And it trains their high-school advisers on how to help them access state financial aid. 

Much of that work screeched to a halt after the volunteerism agency AmeriCorps ended $400 million in grant funding late last month. It’s part of President Donald Trump’s continued slashing of government spending, and led more than 20 states to sue. 

The Scholarship Academy, and many college-access groups like it around the country, rely on the 32,000 AmeriCorps fellows. The National College Attainment Network and more than a dozen other nonprofits have sued as well, arguing the grants were improperly terminated.

The cuts were announced in April, hitting when college-access organizations are most needed. Most students had a May 1 deadline to accept admission and financial aid offers. Yet because of the cuts, “many students were unable to reach their counselors at a time when they had to make one of the most consequential decisions of their lives,” the complaint says. 

The cuts are creating “uncertain outcomes” for students who would have benefited from the support Scholarship Academy provides, said Jessica Johnson, its executive director. 

The Scholarship Academy lost funding for its AmeriCorps fellows just as they were ramping up for summer programming. (Photo: Courtesy of Jessica Johnson)

“It makes me question, you know, is it intentional, the way that college-access organizations are being targeted that are doing this laser focused work for low-income families?” Johnson said. 

Before the cuts, Scholarship Academy had 15 AmeriCorps members working across more than a dozen schools in five counties, Johnson said. She has cobbled together funds to keep six members through the summer. She’s now figuring out how to run upcoming summer camps with a smaller team. 

Summer camp sessions cover topics like scholarship research and essay writing, and end with a “financial aid simulation day.” Participants break up into teams and are given a financial aid award letter that doesn’t cover a theoretical student’s full need. The teams then get 90 minutes to figure out how to close that gap. 

The work has an impact: Scholarship Academy’s website boasts $65 million in scholarships secured and more than 12,000 students served. Nearly three-quarters of the students Scholarship Academy is currently working with have completed the federal financial aid application known as the FAFSA, Johnson said. (Nationally, just about 50% of seniors have completed it so far this spring, according to the National College Attainment Network.) 

And then there’s next year. Scholarship Academy is set to work with 17 Title I schools next year, and Johnson is committed to doing that work. But she was expecting $289,000 in grant funding to pay next year’s AmeriCorps cohort. She’ll now have to cover that gap with additional fundraising, at an already busy time. 

We’re a nonprofit newsroom that relies on your support. If this type of reporting matters to you, donate to Open Campus today.

Elsewhere on Open Campus

An international student from Taiwan poses for a portrait on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin on May 4. He is one of several international students in Texas worried by the federal government's recent immigration enforcement actions. (Credit: Leila Saidane / The Texas Tribune)

From Texas: The Trump administration’s sudden revocation of the legal status of hundreds of Texas college students has left them afraid of future reprisal, several told Jessica Priest at our partner The Texas Tribune. Federal authorities restored the legal status of many students late last month, but the whiplash remains.

“When you create that kind of hostile environment, it makes it difficult for us to carry on with our normal life and complete our education because so much time is spent talking about it, like talking to a lawyer, hearing about the complications,” a University of Houston doctoral student from South Asia told Jessica. “It creates an environment of anxiety and fear.”

++ Earlier this week the Texas Senate gave initial approval to a bill that would restrict protesting on college campuses. It’s a similar policy to what Indiana University enacted last summer.

From Ohio: Amy Morona at our partner Signal Ohio took a momentary break from Trump coverage to capture a fun tradition at Oberlin College. Each year, students can rent priceless works of art — for just $5. The program began decades ago, and was started by a college employee who felt the best way to appreciate art was to live with it.

“It’s sort of amazing that Oberlin lets us just take these things and trusts us with such expensive pieces of art,” said second-year Paige McCallion. “But it’s like, ‘Why shouldn’t you hang expensive things in your home? Why shouldn’t you enjoy beautiful things?’”

Keep in touch

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File image of law enforcement officers clashed with demonstrators protesting the Israel-Hamas war on Tuesday, April 30, 2024, near Polk Place on the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill.

This week, Brianna Atkinson at WUNC published a two-part series about student activists who reflected on their lives one year since a pro-Palestinian protest resulted in violence on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus. She spoke with two students who were there and played a central role, one year after the incident occurred.

Activist Laura Saavedra Forero was doxxed, criminally charged, and lost a prestigious scholarship. Brendan Rosenblum was pictured in a viral image taken during the protest, which threw him into a political media frenzy that largely ignored his Jewish advocacy and instead painted him as a conservative folk hero.

These stories are the result of extended time with each student, reported through multiple interviews and walks on UNC’s campus where she asked them about that day in their own words. This time led Atkinson to an observation: “For all their differences, they share a commitment to their cause and a deep humanity that has gotten lost in all that happened that day — and since.”

Meet our newest editor

This week we welcomed our newest editor, Maye Primera, into our newsroom. A bilingual journalist, she has worked as a reporter and editor for more than 20 years, covering politics, immigration, borders, and human rights across the Americas. As she gets started in her new role coaching reporters in our network, I wanted to share a conversation we had this week:

What drew you to this work? Higher education and media are two fields that are under a lot of scrutiny these days.

It may sound insane, but as a journalist, I have always been attracted to conflict. When there’s a fire and people are trying to escape, I tend to run toward the flames. So perhaps this is the case again, as higher education has become a hard news beat under this administration. There’s a huge potential for harm that we should document and inform the public about.

In recent weeks, we've seen a lot of news about visa revocations and immigration status on college campuses. Legal statuses were recently restored for some students, but last month Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered a justification for these terminations: “We are not going to be importing activists into the United States.” How does this compare to previous reporting you’ve done on political upheaval in the Americas? 

We can see already through coverage in our partner newsrooms that international students are scared and beginning to wonder if the United States is a welcome place to study. It seems that the ultimate message to them is that, from now on, having an opinion or a political stance that challenges the policies or the ideas of the party in power could be a punishable offense.

Our local network is reporting on what this looks like for the people here to study on visas and how the political whiplash affects them, but, understandably, many students are scared to talk. What's something you wish the public understood about this demographic?

Misconceptions about immigrant communities are very common, and that includes the community of international students. Oftentimes, Americans wrongly believe that they are getting a free education or taking away opportunities from U.S. citizens, but that’s not true. On the contrary, targeting and scaring away international students can result in a significant loss of revenue, not only for universities but also for the local economies they exist in.

What are you most looking forward to in this new role?

I guess every editor shares the same aspiration: I look forward to helping my reporters thrive and shine.

We’re a nonprofit newsroom that relies on your support. If this type of reporting matters to you, donate to Open Campus today.

Elsewhere in Open Campus

In Chicago: A student who recently completed his master’s degree at the University of Illinois Chicago was abruptly forced to return to India after his visa was terminated. Once he arrived, he learned that his status had been restored. He’s not sure he’ll return, though.

In Florida: Ian Hodgson reported a follow up on the New College employee who was arrested for indecent exposure and later fired for by the university. Although he had charges before this latest incident, none of the cases showed up in a background check requested by the school, nor did the employee voluntarily disclose them, according to documents obtained by the Tampa Bay Times.

In New York City: CUNY’s research on vaccine misinformation was halted by the Trump Administration. It’s among sixty other CUNY projects which have also received stop-work orders from the National Institute of Health, according to a letter from the chancellor.

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