The University of Texas system, one of the largest in the U.S., is “betting big” on microcredentials, or academic certifications short of a degree. UT is partnering with Coursera to do so, as well as big tech firms like IBM and Google.

The goal for the 30,000 students expected to participate is to help them build skills employers want.

Lauren Coffey of Inside Higher Ed reviews the new program. (September 2023)

President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced another $9 billion in student debt relief through improvements to existing programs, a move that will affect 125,000 Americans, and which he touted as leading to economic improvement.

Wednesday's announcement focuses on three programs: one for borrowers who have worked in public service for more than a decade; another for those who paid down their loans continuously for 20 years, and who now get credit for past payments and forgiveness on the balance; and another effort targeted at disabled borrowers.

The announcement comes just days after the expiration of a three-year pandemic pause on repayments, which affected 40 million Americans. Biden's original, larger, loan forgiveness plan was struck down by the Supreme Court earlier this year after six Republican-led states sued.

"This kind of relief is life-changing for individuals and their families, but it's good for our economy, as well," Biden said. "By freeing millions of Americans from the crushing burden of student debt, it means they can go and get their lives in order."

In all, the Biden administration says it has now canceled $127 billion worth of debt for nearly 3.6 million Americans.

But Biden's political opponents say loan forgiveness amounts to a "student loan bailout for the wealthy." On Wednesday, the head of the Republican National Committee also criticized the plan for only helping a small group.

"He is trying to save face by canceling debt for a few while families struggle to afford Bidenomics," chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement. "Biden's desperate vote grabs won't cover for sky-high inflation and failed economic policies."

Democrats in national and state offices on Wednesday expressed support for the initiative.

Yet advocacy groups that support loan forgiveness have highlighted that the millions of Americans who now have to start repaying their loans after the end of the three-year break — and who don't benefit from any of the programs Biden announced Wednesday — are now "drowning in pursuit of the American Dream."

"Make no mistake: This is a racial equity issue," said Taifa Smith Butler, president of the advocacy group Demos. "Because of America's long history of systemic racism, Black and brown Americans — many of whom were the first in the family to go to college — have had less access to familial wealth and thus were more likely to borrow money for an education.

“When we consider this in tandem with the Supreme Court's recent decision to end affirmative action, the future of equitable access to post-secondary education is bleak."

Looking abroad

Researchers who study international student loan programs say there are better alternatives.

A study of student loan repayment plans in 14 countries, including the U.S., concluded that repayment systems adjusted to borrowers' incomes — instead of the U.S.'s standard, fixed repayment plans — are less risky.

"Currently, there are at least 12 million U.S. former student loan defaulters (just about all of them hugely disadvantaged) labeled as credit risks,” said the researchers at the Washington-based Brookings Institution. “In other countries with similar time-based repayment approaches, student loan default rates range from 40% to 70%.”

But in Australia, the U.K., New Zealand and Hungary, where repayments are based on income, “there is no hardship nor default," said researchers Bruce Chapman and Lorraine Dearden.

At the conservative Heritage Foundation, researchers generally oppose Biden's loan forgiveness initiatives and criticize government subsidies for four-year institutions.

Researcher Adam Kissel, who studies education policy, said the issue goes much deeper to how much U.S. universities charge, how they are structured and how they operate.

"We in the United States have dramatically increased access, but at a terrible cost of having tens of millions of students who have not finished college but have debt," he said. "To fix the student loan problem, we need to rethink the easy money for student loans that enables colleges to raise tuition to unsustainable levels."

U.S. universities charge among the highest tuition rates in the world.

On Wednesday, Biden said his administration would try to do more through the Higher Education Act to ease other borrowers' burdens. And he leveled a shot at his political opponents, noting their acceptance of pandemic-era bailouts.

"Some of the same elected Republicans who are members of Congress who were strongly opposed to giving relief to students got hundreds of thousands of dollars of relief for themselves to keep their businesses open," he said.

"Several members of Congress got over a million dollars, and all those loans were forgiven. The hypocrisy of this, I find stunning. I supported that program, and I support the student debt program."

Florida’s 12 state universities will now accept the Classics Learning Test (CLT), a controversial standardized testing alternative to the SAT and ACT, this fall. They also will continue to accept the more-established SAT and ACT test results.

The CLT focuses on the “classical” Western and Christian canon, according to Inside Higher Ed.

The move comes as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has attempted to reshape higher education in the state, banning diversity programs and fighting with the national College Board over classes like psychology and African American studies.

Juliana Kim reports for NPR. (September 2023)

China is one of the world’s largest source countries for international students, but it just entered a “demographic deficit,” meaning that its population is likely to decline. In a shrinking future, Chinese leaders, and those in other countries, might not want to let young talent go to other countries, especially if the move is permanent. The result, according to one sociologist, will be a boom in long-distance and online education, as governments try to keep their best students at home. John Ross of Times Higher Education reports. (August 2023)

U.S. News & World Report’s annual rankings have been criticized for inaccuracy and exclusivity. The magazine tried to fix this year’s undergraduate rankings by measuring social mobility and graduation rates for first-generation students. It also dropped several indicators, such as alumni giving, that critics say have more to do with prestige than with the quality of education.

Jeremy Bauer-Wolf has more for Higher Ed Dive. (September 2023)

"Gen P," the cohort of students who went online for much of the pandemic, demands more in-person experiences and high-quality digital ones.

Colleges across the country are adjusting their orientation programs as a result. Read more from Colleen Flaherty of Inside Higher Ed. (September 2023)

Aisha Lakhani, a graduate student at Anna Maria College, talks about the path that led her from Pakistan to the school in Paxton, Massachusetts.

She's studying counseling psychology and working with students as a residential specialist, a role in which she creates events and supports students. She talks about her experiences here. (September 2023)

Many colleges no longer require admissions tests like the SAT. They say the tests don’t meaningfully measure intelligence and are easily gamed by wealthier or more privileged students. However, it seems wealthy students are still taking the tests, while poorer ones are forgoing them. Since the tests are still weighed in admissions, the result may be an even larger admissions gap. Maggie Bigelow argues for getting rid of the tests altogether in The Hechinger Report. (August 2023)

Writing in the Baltimore Sun, Jay A. Perman, chancellor of the University of Maryland system, says that despite falling enrollments and public trust in universities, graduates still earn more, live longer and happier lives, and even volunteer more often.

Read the op-ed here. (September 2023)

Syllabi used to be an intellectual map, showing students what they could expect to learn. But academic and video game designer Ian Bogost argues that syllabi have become boring, rote and describe college policies and regulations instead of academic material. Read his argument in The Atlantic. (August 2023)

International students at Michigan State University talk about workplace culture shocks in the U.S.

Sophomore Shreshta Sinha of India, who's studying computational and cognitive neuroscience, says that unlike India, the U.S. tends to stress work over education.

Read the full story here. (September 2023)

Labor unions are finding support among graduate students at U.S. colleges and universities, according to a new report.

Graduate students, upset by working conditions and pay, have held a series of organizing votes in the past two years, Times Higher Education reports. (September 2023).

Only about 4 in 10 Americans say they have a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in higher education. Sarah Wood of U.S. News & World Report examines why and offers some solutions. (August 2023)

Between a third to half of all students admitted to the University of Pennsylvania and the California Institute of Technology feature high school research projects in their applications, and the MIT application even has a dedicated section for them.

Such projects can be “both a differentiator and an equalizer” in the admissions process: they can show your own individual drive and creativity, while also being accessible to students of all races and incomes. Read Janos Perczel’s argument in The Hechinger Report. (August 2023)