Nationwide, just over half of the students who begin a college degree end up graduating.
Often, the ones who don’t make it arrive on campus not quite ready for the academic rigor of college courses; not quite sure how to study and prepare for college papers and exams; and without sufficient personal and academic support networks to help them get through it all.
More than three decades ago, former Northern Essex Community College president, Dr. David Hartleb, with some faculty colleagues at the University of Cincinnati, where he was a dean in 1989, created Teaching Academic Survival and Success (TASS), a national conference for front-line faculty and staff working with at-risk students on college campuses everywhere.
Since then, TASS has become a favorite annual pilgrimage for hundreds of Reading, Writing, and Math instructors, academic advisors and coaches, tutors, librarians, instructional designers and technologists, and others seeking to make a positive difference in the lives of some of America’s most disadvantaged and underserved college students.
NECC has been a proud supporter for more than twenty years now, and this week, I had the opportunity to deliver one of the keynote addresses at the 35thAnnual TASS Conference.
My topic, Colleges at a Crossroads: Teaching Academic Survival and Success Matters Now More Than Ever, was meant to acknowledge some of the unprecedented challenges facing America’s colleges and universities today, and suggest some ways that the most important educators on our campuses—the faculty and staff who interact directly with our students—can cope with the fears they present and develop strategies for managing them.
And it went something like this:
I’m a futurist, and I’m an optimist.
This means my natural inclination is to spend a fair amount of time and mental energy thinking the best about what lies ahead.
In fact, the last time I spoke here at TASS, the title of my presentation was “An Optimist’s Guide to the Top 10 Trends in Higher Education.”
Optimist I may be, but even I knew better than to try that one again this year.
American colleges and universities are at a crucial crossroads, and we’re all feeling that.
We are facing a hostile federal government, an increasingly skeptical public, dizzying technological changes, and a long-anticipated “demographic cliff” that looms closer by the day.
In the midst of all the noise and chaos, there is one thing hasn’t changed since TASS held its first conference thirty-five years ago: you are serving some of higher education’s most vulnerable students, and teaching academic survival and success matters now more than ever.
Please remember this: Most students do not encounter the federal bureaucracy.
They do not read the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Few make visits to Capitol Hill to lobby for bills and funding.
The overwhelming majority don’t even meet their friendly college president until they hopefully shake her or his hand on commencement day.
They take classes.
They sit and plan with advisors and seek help from tutors.
They know you better and you matter more to them than all the rest of us put together.
And for that, you deserve respect and appreciation.
But there is no denying: We are facing some enormous challenges right now, and what happens in Washington, D.C. or Silicon Valley doesn’t always stay in Washington, D.C. and Silicon Valley.
So, I’m not going to put on my futurist hat and my optimist sunglasses today and tell you everything is going to be just fine, because it’s probably not.
If you’re worried, you have good reason to be, and it’s critically important that you identify the source of those worries and figure out strategies for managing them, for your sake, yes, but also for the sake of your students.
Are there any Harry Potter fans here today?
Anyone remember what a boggart is?
A boggart is a mean, shape-shifting spirit that takes the form of your worst nightmare.
And the only way to banish a boggart is by imagining something funny and, using the “Riddikulus” spell, to laugh at it.
For the Harry Potter uninitiated, here is a short clip from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban that explains it:
Now, I didn’t bring enough magic wands for everyone to cast the “Riddikulus” spell, and however hard we try, there are just going to be some things we talk about that we won’t be able to laugh at.
Nonetheless, like the young Harry Potter and his fellow students at Hogwarts, I want you to see that you don’t have to just give in to your worst nightmares.
By being well informed, working together, having strategic relationships with people and organizations that can help you, and taking care of yourself and each other, you can be there for your students in the ways that matter most to them.
Let’s start by opening up the boggart closet: What are you most worried about right now?
[Responses from the TASS crowd included fears about the elimination of student support service programs like TRIO and Upward Bound; threats to immigrant, LGBTQ, and other student populations; restrictions on academic freedom and what can be taught in the classroom; the devaluing of college degrees; and more.]
We may not get to all of those worries, but we’re definitely going to tackle some of them.
Let’s start with the big one.
Higher ed is under attack by the federal government.
No matter your political party or how you feel about the president, you can’t deny the obvious: Higher education is under attack from many directions by the new administration in Washington, D.C.
This is not exactly new. Presidents of both parties have proposed policies or made funding decisions that have not been popular with colleges and universities, and over the past twenty years while the Democratic Party has become known as the party of college elites, the Republican Party in particular has taken stronger steps to curb the influence of higher education.
But what we are experiencing now is unprecedented.
In a speech he delivered to the National Conservatism Conference in 2021 called “The Universities are the Enemy,” Vice President J.D. Vance complained, “We have got to get out of the mindset that the only way to live a good life in this country, the only way for our children to succeed is to go to a four-year university where people will learn to hate their country and acquire a lot of debt in the process.”
Instead, he challenged, “If any of us want to do the things that we want to do for our country and for the people who live in it, we have to honestly and aggressively attack the universities.”
In the run-up to the election, voters had a taste of things to come in the form of the Heritage Foundation’s Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise (a.k.a. “Project 2025), a nearly 1,000 page playbook for taking apart and completely renovating the federal government.
Giving credit where credit is due, although candidate Trump consistently tried to distance himself from Project 2025, declaring he had “nothing to do with it,” and his campaign even vowed to ban people involved in Project 2025 from his administration, as we have all seen, the Trump 2.0 presidency is following the Education chapter of Project 2025 to the letter, and a number of its architects have already been appointed to leadership roles in the White House.
So, in short, we can probably expect to see everything Project 2025 recommended being thrown at us.
Some already has been, and the rest is still to come, including:
- An effort to abolish the Department of Education
- The elimination of federal student loan programs
- Restricting diversity, equity and inclusion, or “DEI,” policies, practices, and funding support on college campuses
- Modifying Title IX protections (again), with a particular focus on limiting rights for LGBTQ students
- Attempts to control academic content (mostly by restricting content associated with DEI like “critical race theory” and by requiring a “pro-American” stance on history and other subjects)
- Reallocating federal funds, like Pell grants, to short-term, workforce-oriented credentials
- Limiting the role of accrediting agencies
Some of this can and will need to be fought against vigorously, on campuses and in courtrooms, and a lot of that litigation has already begun.
Judges have already issued preliminary injunctions blocking provisions or temporarily halting executive orders seeking to end DEI initiatives, rolling back LGBTQ rights, and haphazardly firing federal employees, and there is a lot more still ahead.
I’m fortunate to come from Massachusetts, where our governor, our attorney general, our education secretary, and the leaders of our legislature have all stood up and declared their support for higher education in the state.
In the last sixty days, our state’s attorney general has already sued the new administration six times, and our governor, while she was attorney general during the last Trump administration, sued nearly 100 times, prevailing in most of those cases.
But I know that not everyone lives in states ready to rise to that level of defense, and even then, there are limits to what states can do, especially when facing a federal government willing to withhold enormous sums of money to get what it wants, as Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania are discovering right now.
Higher ed is losing public confidence
On top of all that, support for American higher education among everyday citizens has been on a decade-long decline in America.
First, the bad news: The results of the most recent Gallup Higher Education Survey reveal that confidence in American colleges and universities continues to fall, with about a third of respondents (36%) saying they have a lot of confidence, and similar proportions indicating they have some confidence (32%) and little or no confidence (32%).
The main reasons cited for this souring of opinion, which is sharpest among Republicans but exists across political parties, include concerns about political agendas, a lack of focus on critical workforce skills, and the cost of attending college.
Now some (sort of) good news: Americans have much more faith in community colleges, with almost half (48%) expressing a lot of confidence, another 40% signaling some confidence, and only 10% indicating little or no confidence.
The difference in esteem between the two- and four-year sectors is primarily about cost and perceived value: Respondents believe community colleges provide high quality education that teaches relevant skills for the workforce at a reasonable cost.
If you aren’t teaching or working for a community college, or if that just still isn’t enough to lift your spirits, then you can practice a little schadenfreude and feel better knowing that, for all their doubts, Americans still have more confidence in higher education (36%) than in most other institutions, including the Supreme Court (30%), the Presidency (26%), and Congress (9%).
Thanks to all of the assaults on American institutions, including the police, the media, government, and education, by both the Left and the Right, the not-very-surprising results are that our confidence levels in nearly all of them, according to Gallup, are at historic lows.
Somehow, we are going to have to stop putting the institutions we rely on the most in the middle of our political culture wars and tearing them apart, before we have none left that we can all look toward with pride, faith, and a sense of national accomplishment.
We’re seeing the results of all this turmoil in our national mood.
The 2025 World Happiness Report, prepared by the University of Oxford’s Wellbeing Research Centre and Gallup, found the United States tumbling to 24th among over 100 countries surveyed, its lowest spot ever on the list.
Enrollment Volatility
Even without the looming threats of a hostile federal government and skeptical public, after decades of steady growth, American higher education has been experiencing its first significant, extended enrollment declines—and they are only going to get worse.
This illustration from the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education (WICHE) projects that, other than a handful of states in the south that will see some increases in the years ahead, most regions of the country are going to find enrollment in colleges and universities continuing to plummet by nearly 20%.
It’s been called the “Demographic Cliff,” and indeed, declining birth rates and overall population across most of the country do account for the most significant part of this drop in enrollment, but there are other factors at play as well.
Over the last decade, according to a recent analysis by the Chronicle of Higher Education, White undergraduate enrollment has dropped more than any other group: by 19% since 2018, compared to 7% for college students overall.
We have certainly seen this happening at my college.
As New England’s first federally designated Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI), NECC serves the largest proportion of Hispanic students of any college in our region. Over the past ten years, we have certainly seen our enrollment decline, like most other institutions, but our Hispanic enrollment has now rebounded to its pre-pandemic level, while our White student enrollment is still down by 37%.
After years of needed, intense focus on access to college and successful completion for Black, Hispanic, and other minority groups, this sudden, rapid decline in White student enrollment is a phenomenon that has not been widely studied.
Some explanations offered include:
- A long-running, nearly full employment economy
- Skepticism, especially among conservative, White males, that colleges are centers of indoctrination for liberal ideas
- Gen Z’s increasing interest in skilled trades that has earned them the nickname of the “Toolbelt Generation”
- Increasing attention to non-degree, “skills-based hiring” practices among employers
Declining enrollment in traditional degree programs is going to continue to present problems for many colleges and universities, and some will not survive the decade ahead. There will be more closures and mergers.
But at the same time, there are glimmers of hope and opportunity in this crisis.
Common App data show an increase of 9% in college applications from prospective students in low-income zip codes, and 13% among Black and Hispanic students.
In addition, dual enrollment or “early college” programs across the country now account for 20% of community college student enrollments, and early college programs have proven to be one of the most effective ways of connecting underserved students to college degrees.
Thirty-five states now offer some kind of “free college” program, including my own, Massachusetts, which rolled out MassReconnect two years ago, offering free community college to adults over the age of 25 without degrees, then expanded it to everyone last year.
Enrollment at our fifteen community colleges leaped by 14% and is continuing to climb.
Enrollment challenges are also creating opportunities for all of us to think differently about the credentials we offer.
Last year, my state also joined eleven others around the country in eliminating bachelor’s degrees as a requirement for tens of thousands of state jobs, in hopes of inspiring more employers to do the same.
While “skills-based hiring” is getting more traction, it is also providing opportunities for colleges and universities to offer shorter-term certificates, apprenticeships, and other skills-based credentials for the workforce.
Even those bachelor’s degrees, which for centuries have been based on a four-year completion model, are getting a fresh look: Through the “College in 3” initiative, a handful of universities across the country, including Merrimack College in Massachusetts, are beginning to offer 90-credit, three-year applied baccalaureate degrees in fields like computer science, criminal justice, graphic design, and hospitality management.
If we had more time this morning, we could keep talking about the full array of other worries lying in wait inside the Boggart closet, including:
- The state of academic freedom on college campuses
- Threats to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives
- The rise of artificial intelligence (AI)
- The “end of reading”
And a lot more.
But I know there are some phenomenal breakout sessions planned, and you have a lot to learn from each other.
So, let me shift toward offering some suggestions for how to manage the maelstrom.
You are not powerless in the face of these challenges, and indeed, you represent one of the most powerful and important resources most of our students ever meet.
You can:
Provide a Safe and Supportive Classroom Environment.
Whatever may be happening in the world, in their lives outside the classroom, and in your life outside the classroom, you can reassure students and demonstrate to them that your classroom is a place for learning and safety.
You can create a positive, strengths-based classroom environment using tools like Appreciative Inquiry to build a close community of learners.
You can also foster open, respectful discussions where students with different points of view can share their concerns, ideas and opinions.
If this is new for you, there are lots of great tools available to help you prepare, like Civil Discourse in the Classroom from the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is designed for kids, but works equally well with adults. Or go a step further, take an online class and get certified by the Constructive Dialogue Institute.
And be mindful of the opinions you express yourself in the classroom. Academic freedom is an important bedrock principle of American higher education, and one of the main reasons our colleges and universities are known as the best in the world.
But there is a difference between research, reporting, teaching, and facilitating open, respectful discussions, and proselytizing about topics that may not be related to course content.
One of the reasons Americans are losing confidence in higher education is the spreading belief that colleges are intolerant places of indoctrination, rather than places for free inquiry, discussion and debate.
Avoid contributing to that impression among your students.
However you approach your classroom, laboratory, advising center or other student support services, try not to add to the cynicism that is eroding public trust in higher education and other American institutions. Call out faults when needed, but when you do, try to offer constructive paths forward to solutions.
Know your students and their concerns, and advocate for them at your college.
While presidents, vice presidents, deans and other senior leaders at your college may have experience in the classroom or in direct student support services, and while they may from time to time interact with students on campus, you know your college’s students best, and the people who are responsible for managing budgets, staffing, facilities, policies, and other aspects of college life that impact students will make better decisions if you are sharing what you know and advocating for students’ needs.
When you do, keep in mind that student stories are powerfully effective, especially when they are supported by data and evidence illustrating their impact.
For example, my college was New England’s first federally designated Hispanic-Serving Institution. Half of our students are Hispanic, mostly from the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, though increasingly also from Central and South America.
One of our campuses is in Lawrence, Massachusetts, known as the “Immigrant City” because for generations it has been home to wave after wave of immigrants from Irish, Germans, Italians, Lebanese, Polish, and now Dominicans and others from across the Caribbean and the Americas.
The accents may have changed, but the dreams, the challenges, the perseverance, and the will to succeed and to thrive is as powerful as ever.
Our students and their families have a range of citizenship status, and we have many undocumented students who have grown up in the United States, students often referred to as DREAMERS, but because of their status, they have had to pay international tuition rates, which are three times the cost of what resident, in-state students pay.
As we heard more stories from our faculty, staff, and international student advisors about the heavy burden this placed on these students, like Joan Shauri, who was brought to the United States from Tanzania by an aunt when she was five, and did not know her status until she was in high school and beginning to look at colleges.
She attended our college for a while, taking a class or two at a time, striving to be a nurse, and paying for her education by cleaning houses.
We partnered with national organizations like the Presidents’ Alliance for Higher Education and Immigration and TheDream.US, and organizations in our state like the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy (MIRA) Coalition on social media information campaigns and legislation.
We paired stories like Joan’s with data about projected shortages of college-educated people for our workforce, especially in fields like healthcare.
As a result of partnerships like this, Massachusetts recently joined half the states in America, including conservative states like Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Texas, in offering Tuition Equity for undocumented college students, so they can access in-state tuition rates and financial aid.
Because of advocacy from faculty and staff on our campuses.
Consider your students’ greatest needs and help people on your campus who have access to resources and decision-making understand them and act on them.
Ensure students have accurate, timely information about what concerns them the most.
I don’t need to tell you this, you already know, but let’s put it out there anyway: There is a lot of bad information out there.
Intentionally or unintentionally, bad information gets shared via the rumor mill, social media, and other channels, and it can create unnecessary anxiety and lead to bad decision-making.
The real, fact-based news can be scary enough right now without misinformation making it worse.
So, once you know what your students’ biggest concerns are, and those vary by college and location, do what you can to connect them with accurate, timely information.
Our students and their families have a particular need for accurate, timely information about changes in immigration policy and enforcement; so, we prioritize sharing that kind of information and making bilingual services available to help them.
Your campus may also host large numbers of students in need of information and support around immigration issues. Or perhaps you have a large, active group of LGBTQ students facing increased challenges; or your college serves low-income communities, where the federal budget cuts will have some of the greatest impact on support for basic needs and healthcare.
Whatever your students’ greatest needs, there are ways both small and large that you can help by ensuring they have access to accurate, timely information and, when possible, advocacy.
That can include:
- Teaching students how to evaluate news sources to distinguish facts from misinformation (pro tip: your college librarians can be useful allies here, and web sites like the AllSides Bias Checker are great resources).
- Discussing historical and current government policies and their effects on education.
- Helping students understand their rights on and off campus.
Connect students to campus and community resources.
As the front line on your college campus for student interaction, you’re likely going to hear first about students grappling with mental health issues, housing instability, domestic violence, and a host of other life challenges.
Be prepared to help them however you can by knowing:
- Who to call or where to refer students for basic needs and mental health assistance on campus
- The office location, phone number, and email address for your college’s Financial Aid office
- Where immigrant and undocumented students can get accurate, timely information and assistance about their status and with available resources
- Other resources specific to the needs of your college’s students
Pace yourself
If it feels like you are living inside the movie Everything, Everywhere, All at Once because so much is happening at the same time, that’s because it is.
There is a lot coming at higher education right now, and if you try to take it all on at the same time, all the time, you are going to burn out—quickly.
As flight attendants tell us before every take off, in the event of an emergency requiring oxygen masks, “Ensure your own oxygen mask is fitted before assisting others.”
This is smart, practical advice.
You need to be able to breathe if you are going to save yourself and those around you.
The same rule applies here: To be at your best for your students and colleagues, you need to be at your best. That may require:
- Setting boundaries on your news consumption
- Reducing exposure to social media (avoid “Doomscrolling”)
- Avoid sensationalism by choosing balanced, reliable sources (the AllSides Bias Checkeris a great resource)
- Balance the negative with the positive (consider subscribing to The Optimist Daily, Future Crunch, or other sources of positive news)
- Practicing your version of self-care, whatever that may be (exercise, beach read novels, watercolor painting)
Don’t let the boggarts win!
Whatever it is you are most anxious about or afraid of right now, and there are plenty of choices, remember that you are not powerless, and you represent one of the most powerful and important resources most of our students ever meet.
So, above all: Don’t let the boggarts win!
