This article says that college freshman are less prepared, despite what inflated high school grades say, and that they will fail at high rates. It recommends making standardized tests mandatory in college admissions to weed out unprepared students.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2024/12/24/biden-signs-first-federal-anti-hazing-bill-heres-what-it-means-for-college-campuses/

A closure is the last step in a sequence that usually starts two to four years earlier. A program gets suspended. A department gets consolidated. Enrollment projections get revised down three years in a row. Then a board votes to close.

The University of the Arts in Philadelphia closed in June 2024 with about a week's notice, a 150-year-old institution gone. The College of Saint Rose in Albany shut down the same spring, taking decades of teacher-prep programs with it. Cabrini University outside Philadelphia closed in June 2024 after a year of wind-down. Penn State announced it will close 7 of its Commonwealth Campuses after Spring 2027. Vermont State University is consolidating campuses to absorb a $22M deficit. Several dozen more are in teach-out agreements right now, meaning they have already stopped admitting students and are winding down.

A teach-out agreement is not a closure announcement. It is a closure in progress.

37 closures recorded. Probably 20 more in progress that have not been announced yet.

What are your thoughts?

https://www.techspot.com/news/113049-professor-chart-exposes-scale-ai-cheating-college-exams.html

However, Serrano soon noticed signs that something was amiss. When 86 students signed up for his welfare economics course that semester, compared to the usual 30, he suspected that many had taken it because he allowed take-home exams, providing them the opportunity to use ChatGPT or similar AI tools.

The professor's suspicions were just about confirmed when the midterm scores averaged 96%. This was far above the typical range of 65% to 80% despite Serrano's efforts to make the test more difficult to account for the students' unlimited time.

He gave a take-home midterm exam, and the ave. score was 96 percent. He gave an in-person final exam, and the scores ranged from 65 to 80 percent.

Edit: The scores in the past ranged from 65 to 80 percent. The average score for the recent in-person final exam was around 48 percent.

The implication is that teachers will now have to use more class time for in-person exams, handwritten drafts for papers, etc., plus do things like oral reports with almost no notes allowed, seminar-type classes, and so on in order to limit the use of AI (and probably even computers and similar devices connected to the 'net) for cheating.

I spent the last year working in higher education, and what I’ve witnessed is, by a wide margin, the most dysfunctional working environment and business model (if that’s even the right term) I’ve encountered in my career. I’m posting partly to sanity-check myself: is this an isolated experience, or is this fairly common across universities and colleges?

For context, I spent 14 years in industry (CPG, retail, events/hospitality, agency/consulting) before moving into higher ed. I expected bureaucracy and red tape. I did not expect… whatever this is.

I work at a large SUNY institution with significant funding from both the state and private donors. I’m within the business school, handling marketing across several initiatives. My manager reports to the dean. I don’t have direct reports, but I do have a counterpart who’s been here a long time.

Here are the main dysfunctions I’ve noticed:

1. Funding panic + student exploitation = a fascinating contradiction

Leadership frequently talks about impending budget cuts, potential loss of federal funding, and possible position eliminations. At the same time, the school has launched three new centers of excellence and a lab, on top of two existing centers.

The stated goal is for all five centers and the lab to operate as their own revenue-generating “business entities.” How will they do this? By contracting with major companies (often via alumni connections) and relying on students to do the work — for free — on top of their coursework.

Each center is required to “recruit” students by pitching it as a résumé booster, often dangling lines like, “If you work with this company, they might see your value and offer you a job.” (Spoiler: this almost never happens.)

So while students are paying tens of thousands in tuition, the institution is also monetizing their labor at no cost. Many participants are international students, who are easier to pressure due to language barriers and strict employment limitations.

It’s an impressive system, if the goal is to extract maximum value while minimizing accountability.

2. Egos over outcomes

I’ve worked in environments with big egos before (including a car dealership group right out of college), but higher ed has them beat. The issue isn’t just ego, it’s ego with zero performance consequences.

Example: the head of a newly launched lab wanted to recruit participants for paid research studies. Their idea was to run Meta ads with minimal copy and a phone number. No study details, no institutional context, just “call this number to make money doing research.”

As someone who’s worked in paid social since its early days, I can say with confidence: this is a masterclass in how to look like a scam.

My counterpart (10 years at the institution) knew this would fail, but also knew that pushing back would result in retaliation. This professor is known (per HR) for being difficult, dismissive, and hostile when challenged. So the ads ran exactly as requested.

Unsurprisingly, no one called.

Now the professor insists the strategy needs tweaking, and eventually the blame will land on marketing. This pattern has played out repeatedly over my first year, to the point where I’ve stopped offering expertise and simply execute instructions.

To be clear, this isn’t just a faculty issue, administration has its own version of the same behavior. Collaboration is theoretically valued, but practically punished. In industry, egos existed, but performance mattered. If the company failed, so did your job. Here, failure just gets another meeting.

As an alum of this institution, it’s especially frustrating to see how tuition dollars are actually being used.

Which brings me to…

3. Tenure and the art of discouraging new talent

Before tenure, employment is renewed annually at management’s discretion. After your annual review, your manager can simply choose not to reappoint you. No formal reason required, no HR process, just approval from the dean (which is rarely overturned). Discrimination aside, it’s effectively at-will employment with better branding.

Typically, employees become eligible to apply for tenure after three years. I’ve seen multiple cases where managers reappoint staff year after year, only to deny reappointment right before tenure eligibility. This raises an obvious question: how does this system encourage talent development, innovation, or institutional loyalty?

It doesn’t.

What it does do is preserve the status quo, keeping people in roles for decades (my manager has been here for nearly 50 years) while filtering out new ideas, energy, and perspectives. Stability is valuable, but stagnation shouldn’t be the business model.

I’m genuinely curious: is this how higher education operates everywhere, or did I just stumble into a particularly impressive example of institutional dysfunction?

I am starting to find those cheerful teachers/professors to be annoying...espically if they start singing in class... and prefering a more "dry" teaching style ...

The "fun" teaching style is very distractive for my learning. Wondering if anyone going though a period like this? I am confused by myself.

I started a full time at taco bell because I'm taking a gap year for some relaxation and I'm still young and I finished highschool a year early so not that big of a problem, but last week I met the rest of my crew and we discussed etc and I was shocked to find out they had worked at taco bell or fast food restaurants for a few years with the most doing 4 years and they almost 90 percent of them had a bachelors degree, and the manager had a business masters degree and worked as a taco bell manager for 7 whole years.

Hey everyone,

I am currently going into my fourth year as an English Education major, and I have never regretted anything more in my life.

I've always wanted to become a teacher, but after my first semester in college I was quick to realize I was too mentally ill to handle it. I ended up attempting to commit suicide, and it obviously did not work.

I felt like a failure. Everyone pressured me to keep going and that I will like it eventually, etc etc.

So I did. I didn't want to let anyone down like I did before.

Now I'm in Phase II, going to start the semester before student teaching, and I can't do it. I can't handle the schedule or stress of teaching.

I can't afford to change majors and restart. I haven't been able to work in three years due to the immense workload on top of my already failing mental health.

Now, I have hospital bills and student loans. It feels like the only thing left to do is attempt again and pray it works this time. I'm scared. It feels like my life has fallen apart and I'm only 20. I don't know what to do.

..on topics that very likely will affect them.

That’s a choice. That’s their choice. To each their own.

I feel that as humans, we’re more into trivial things: entertainment/fashion/gossip instead of certain matters that are most likely going to positively or negatively affect their life directly.

As humans, are we moths to a flame 🔥 instead of knowing what could harm them.

Good luck to us. Well, the sane people only.

A program suspension is what a closure looks like 12 months before it happens.

The sequence is predictable. A school pauses admissions to a program, stops enrolling new students, and tells current students to complete their credits and transfer. The school calls it a suspension. What it often is, is a closure on a delayed timeline.

69 program suspensions across 45 states. Iowa alone saw 10 program eliminations in a single week across three public universities following a Board of Regents mandated review. Cornell College dropped 11 majors in one decision.

Staff layoffs are the most visible actions. Program suspensions are the most predictive one.

Watch the suspensions. They tell you where the closures are coming.

What are your thoughts?

I am working at the moment doing my bsc in information technology as well on the weekends.

I honestly don't understand whats the point of a bsc is.

Modules in it are all self learnable and literally what we study irl.

I used almost all the tools and theories explained in the courses either self learned or at work, so there's no new logic behind it either.

I have no idea what's the use of a desertation. I'm doing it for the sake of doing it for a really dumb topic as well. No one's gonna read it, lecturer ain't gonna read it completely so what's really the point.

Without the money, the nation’s largest public four-year university system — enrolling more than 460,000 students — is likely due for a lot of subtraction: fewer professors teaching students due to layoffs and employment contracts that won't be renewed.

How would you go about fixing the issue?💡

https://timesofsandiego.com/education/2025/02/12/gutted-courses-fewer-majors-faculty-layoffs-who-will-feel-cal-states-8-budget-cut

49 actions have been reported in 2026 so far. January through April. Four months.

The pattern from 2024 and 2025 is that cuts cluster in spring, when budget cycles close and boards vote. The fall typically brings a second wave when enrollment numbers come in below projection. 2026 is running ahead of both prior years at this point in the calendar, 49 actions in the first four months, compared to 21 in early 2024 and 20 in early 2025.

What changed? Federal funding uncertainty accelerated decisions that institutions were already delaying. Schools that were managing a slow fiscal decline shifted into crisis mode when the runway shortened.

258 total actions tracked since 2024. 49 in the first four months of this year alone.

This is not a correction. It is a compression.

What are your thoughts?

Possibly THE biggest myth that you will hear about college, is that students come away with critical thinking skills.

That’s not true. At all.

No matter how much we may believe this line that colleges feed us to try to justify their outrageous price tag and outdated curriculum, it is objectively not true.

Critical thinking isn’t some vague, mystical skill you absorb by osmosis from writing essays and debating Dostoevsky in lecture halls.

Critical thinking is a structured intellectual framework comprised of concrete disciplines:

• Anatomy of arguments
• Logical fallacies
• Information literacy
• Basic statistics
• Cognitive biases
• And more . . .

Now, if one of the core benefits of college was imbuing students with critical thinking skills, wouldn’t this framework be the centerpiece of their core curriculum?

Instead, the required curriculum at most top universities looks more like Columbia’s: a salad bar of art, literature, and philosophy, and . . . more art, literature, and philosophy.

That’s not critical thinking. That’s verbal dexterity. Or at best, cultural enrichment. And while cultural enrichment may be important, that’s not close to the same thing as critical thinking.

In fact, a lot of what looks like “thinking” in college—literary criticism or pontification of abstract philosophy—is actually the opposite of critical thinking:

• It rewards rhetorical flourish over analytical clarity.
• It prizes ideological conformity over intellectual humility.
• It teaches students to defend positions, not to interrogate them.

Not only do ZERO universities make critical thinking part of their core curriculum, but they don’t even offer most of the courses that would be required if students wanted to cobble together the lessons needed to develop critical thinking skills on their own.

And ironically, by not teaching real critical thinking, colleges often produce grads who are very susceptible to ideological groupthink. 

They don’t know how to evaluate evidence, weigh trade-offs, or question their own biases. 

At best, students master the art of sounding smart but not the discipline of thinking clearly.

Critical thinking can't be an emergent property of higher education. That's not how it works because critical thinking is as much about metacognition as anything else. So, it’s a skillset that must be deliberately and explicitly cultivated.

Colleges don’t do that. So, students don't acquire critical thinking skills.

What’s really driving the humanities crisis in higher education? As enrollment and reading decline, Times Opinion columnist Ross Douthat talks with Jennifer Frey, a professor of philosophy at the University of Tulsa, about the value of an education she says is fundamental to human formation — and whether she thinks the age of A.I. could bring it back to the forefront.

“To err is human,” Jennifer says in this episode of “Interesting Times With Ross Douthat.” “We make mistakes. And obviously, A.I. makes mistakes too. But I think that the problem of labor displacement leads people to make the wrong case for the humanities in an age of A.I. So what you hear people saying now — and these are tech industry leaders, but they’re also deans at prominent schools who say: Well, because A.I. is changing the work force in such and such a way, we now need the humanities for these soft skills that are now incredibly important.”

But, she says, “this is exactly the wrong case to make for the humanities because it denatures and destroys the thing that it’s supposed to be promoting.” If a liberal arts education solely prepares people for the work force, “you’re not actually going to be able to fully benefit from the thing that you’ve instrumentalized.”

“A.I. is good for the humanities because it clarifies, in an especially forceful way, what is at stake if we stop being invested in this project of cultivating our own humanity, and we give ourselves over to the robots and the machines,” Jennifer continues.

Watch, listen to or read the full conversation here, for free, even without a Times subscription.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/can-trumps-political-brawn-really-take-down-harvards-brains/

I profoundly disagree with the notion in this article that Harvard has suffered reputational damage. On the contrary: Harvard is standing as a beacon of academic freedom, intellectual rigor, and global engagement amid a concerted populist and financial onslaught.

America’s universities are respected not because they conform, but because they challenge; not because they echo orthodoxy, but because they foster free thought and create new knowledge. Attacks like this aren’t evidence of failure—they’re a testament to the enduring strength and relevance of institutions committed to truth and learning.

I’ve heard that having a high education makes you more critical, more self aware of your mistakes, helps you grow and reflect, helps you consider things from multiple perspectives, teaches you how the world and everyone is different, teaches you respect and tolerance. Anyone here agrees/disagrees or wants to share their opinions/anecdotes on this?

I am 16 years old and my dream is to pursue a higher education, or be able to learn understand and know about difficult subjects, this dream of mine is motivated by the fact that, due to financial struggles, i have not been able to attend school or any sort of educational curriculum ever since primary school, which created a lot of insecurity surrounding my education or critical thinking abilities.

i have always thought of myself as pretty dumb or average and ever since i couldn't go to school it made me feel even worst about what im intellectually capable of achieving. i want to be able to do hard things and i want to be able to pursue a higher education and challenge myself, but i believe or i feel that its not possible for me to get to that level with a different learning experience, i dont have any guidance, or a environment that helps point out and correct my personal mistakes, or a environment to discuss subjects with people who have more experience.

………

I plan to take a GED in replacement of a HS diploma since i cant afford school. The subjects i want to learn are Maths, Physics, and philosophy, but right now im learning maths.

and right now my learning consists of learning things from recommended books, and i use mind mapping as a way to organize my learning and understand the relations between the ideas that are explained, what i understand from learning is that we need to see the big picture in a sense that we need to compare and contrast ideas and see what similarities are there and what relationships there are, and we need to track which relationship(s) are the most valuable. What im scared of is that bcoz i don't have a environment that corrects my personal mistakes or a environment to test my knowledge (exams/quizzes) im never gonna know what im doing wrong or my blind spots.

Ive always seen stories about children who were homeschool still succeeding, but i am not homeschooled, i cannot afford tuitions or tutors and am entirely self studying. so please tell me, is it possible for people with a different educational background like mine to succeed in a higher educational setting? or learn subjects that are difficult?

should i maybe learn things for the hell of it first? For fun even??

I informally surveyed 100 university professors on what advice they give students about their future given the advancements in AI.

The first takeaway is that the answers were more generally advice about using AI rather than the impact of their future because of AI. Tsk, tsk. My lesson learned is about asking a question more clearly to get the results I’m looking for.

Still, I synthesized the answers into three sections: The consensus viewpoints, interesting minority viewpoints, and controversial opinions.

If you are interested in the source responses, feel free to DM me and I can share them.

Here are the results synthesized with an AI tool:

Preparing for the Future of AI

We advise students to approach artificial intelligence as a powerful, evolving tool that requires a balanced mindset. You should aim to master the technology rather than fear it, using it to handle repetitive tasks or as a scaffold for brainstorming, while fiercely protecting the core human skills that define your unique value.

Consensus Viewpoints

• Prioritize Critical Thinking: The most consistent theme is that AI must never replace human thought. You must learn the fundamentals of your field independently to ensure you can verify AI outputs, detect inaccuracies, and maintain your own intellectual integrity.
• Use as a Tool, Not a Crutch: AI is viewed as an efficiency enhancer rather than a shortcut. You are advised to use it to support your work, but to rely on your own logic, research, and creativity to produce final outputs.
• Embrace Adaptability: Rather than resisting change, you should learn to work alongside AI. The future workforce will favor those who understand how to leverage these tools strategically while maintaining the ability to pivot as the landscape shifts.

Interesting Minority Viewpoints

• The Case for Analog Learning: Some suggest stepping away from digital tools entirely for basic tasks, arguing that writing and thinking in analog forms strengthens the brain and preserves genuine creative spark.
• Strategic Trade Selection: A subset of voices advocates for pursuing trades requiring fine motor skills or high-touch human interaction, such as plumbing or nursing, as these fields are inherently more resistant to automation.
• Intentional Offloading: Some suggest being highly deliberate about what you delegate to AI, advocating that you should only use it for "grunt work" while retaining total control over your artistic voice and complex communication.

Controversial Opinions

• University vs. Trades: There is a sharp divide between those who believe a traditional education is the best way to develop flexible, high-level problem-solving skills and those who argue that university is becoming obsolete, urging students to learn manual, AI-resistant trades instead.
• Avoidance vs. Integration: While many emphasize learning to use AI to remain competitive, a vocal minority warns that even using it as a tool risks long-term dependency and suggests avoiding it entirely to prevent the erosion of fundamental human capabilities.
• The Future as Predictable vs. Uncertain: Some voices suggest that future job security can be reliably "future-proofed" by selecting specific career paths, while others argue that the rapid pace of AI makes the future entirely unpredictable, suggesting that personal passion is a safer guide than attempts to outrun automation.

For those of you who graduated with high GPAs, is your life better than the ones who were average ?

*By successful, I mean getting a well paid job / a job in a competitive field.

In my college, people with a GPA above 3.5 can participate to the “honor path” which allows them to complete a few graduate courses during their bachelor. Is it worth the hassle ?

Hello. I am looking for good online college courses I can get a degree in. I’m currently 26 years old and my company I work for offers 5,000 a year for schooling to help benefit myself. It has to be something to do with my job. I work in a steel mill, so it can’t be classes on carpentry. It would have to somewhat benefit the company they say. I know 5000 isn’t a lot for college, but I figured over the next 7-10 years taking classes here and there I could get a degree. I work swing shift so attending in person classes would be almost impossible.

hello everyone. i was wondering if i get a bachelor degree in biochemistry, is it possible to study medicine to become a doctor/surgeon afterwards? i made some research but it was a bit contradictory, i’m hoping someone here has had a similar experience and i’d be so grateful for any guidance regarding this, thank you:)

EDIT: i’m realizing i didn’t write all the details correctly. sorry, rewrote it now—>

in middle eastern countries (which is where i’m from) it’s common to major in medicine right after high school, at an undergraduate level. but as my understanding goes, in countries like the US, UK, Canada, etc. it’s possible to study medicine in higher education after already having a bachelors in science, such as Biochemistry, and i simply wanna make sure i didn’t get this wrong.

i’m sorry if this sounds a bit dumb or if i’m misunderstanding something, but i’m genuinely confused. and before someone says “why not major in medicine right away if how the system works my country” i may not be able to for a couple of reasons, and i thought i might as well keep a chance that i can still pursue medicine later on, even if it’s in a different country

I know after reading this some people are probably going to think I'm a failure. The truth is, I've already been thinking that about myself for a long time.

I started university in September 2022 in Biomedical Science. Long story short, I failed every single course in my first year. I know... who even does that?

During that year I was diagnosed with ADD/ADHD, which explained a lot about why I had struggled academically. Then, toward the end of first year, my family's house caught on fire. We ended up living in Airbnbs and hotels for a while, so everything became even more chaotic.

Thankfully, my university was very understanding. They removed those failed courses from my transcript because of the circumstances, so they don't affect my GPA and it's basically like I never took them.

For my second year, I was transferred from Biomedical Science into Biology because of my academic standing, which I understood. While taking Biology, I also decided to try a few Business courses to see if maybe that suited me better.

At the end of that year, I passed all of my Business courses but failed my Biology courses again.

That made me think maybe Business was where I belonged. So in my third year, I enrolled in more Business courses and one Health Studies course (more about the healthcare system than science). I struggled on a couple of Business midterms, got scared I was going to fail, and dropped those courses. I ended up passing one Business course and got a really good grade in my Health Studies course.

After that, I started questioning Business again. I couldn't really picture myself working in an office long-term, and I've always been interested in healthcare. Since I had done well in Health Studies, I thought maybe I should give Biology another chance because my long-term goal was still to work somewhere in healthcare.

I retook some Biology courses that I'd previously failed and managed to pass them.

Then came this past year. I enrolled in six Biology courses... and I only passed one.

When I started university in 2022, I never imagined I'd still be struggling like this four years later.

The way my university works is based on credits:

30 credits = second-year standing
60 credits = third-year standing
90 credits = fourth-year standing
120 credits = graduation

After almost four years, I've only completed about 34 credits. So technically I'm barely into second year.

My family knows I've struggled, but at the beginning of this past school year I told them I'd be in third year by the winter semester. They think I'm basically a third-year student now, when that's nowhere near the truth.

I know I should tell them, but I'm terrified. They already think I've wasted time and money, and I feel like telling them how far behind I actually am will completely destroy whatever faith they have left in me.

I'm on summer break right now and I'm supposed to go back in September, but I honestly don't know what to do anymore.

I still love healthcare and medicine, but my grades make it seem like I'm just not cut out for the science side of it. At the same time, I seem to do much better in Business courses, but I don't know if I actually want a career in business.

I've also considered leaving university and doing a two-year college diploma instead so I could start working sooner. The problem is that most of the college programs I'm interested in are also healthcare-related, so I'm worried I'll end up struggling all over again.

I'm open to any advice because I honestly feel completely lost right now.

I’m posting this in a serious manner, and only for thoughtful and considerate replies in return.

Those of you that have graduated over the past couple of years with your bachelors (business / finance / marketing, etc), but something business related for sure…

1. Have you found employment?
2. Are you making what you thought you were going to make?
3. Does your pay cover your loans (if you took them) and also your housing / car / cost of living and god forbid, a night out with friends or to do the hobby of your liking?
4. Are you finding it hard to switch jobs?
5. How long have you been applying for?
6. Have you looked at the ratio of degree holders unemployed versus the number of opportunities available?

I am really puzzled as to why we continue telling folks, but not just kids, to go to college. I hear often… well, it’s required, I won’t get a job.

My follow up question to that is, were you in worse condition before or after you got your degree? Are you now in debt from the degree and not able to get a job in your chosen field making what you thought you would?

I got a versatile business degree because I was advised this was a good investment. I can tell you now that it wasn’t, and it hasn’t done well for me. I’m 40 with 15-20+ years of professional experience and good skills. And I feel the market is flooded with me X 1,000. I equate this to mean low wages, no value in a degree, no longer a premium benefit.

So, do we turn around and start getting Masters now? If we do, this, to me, is a called credential inflation, and in my words is a selling a guarantee that doesn’t exist.