
Reporting on Biden’s Higher Education Policies in a Divisive Era
Tips for covering state and federal policies, enrollment declines, campus challenges and more.
Tips for covering state and federal policies, enrollment declines, campus challenges and more.
University leaders hope to take advantage of a potentially historic influx of federal funding, re-engage students who left during the pandemic and stave off longer-term enrollment drops.
They face these challenges amid bitter fights over mask and vaccine mandates, and political polarization over affirmative action, freedom of speech and allegations of “cancel culture.”
“The most general issue that worries the vast majority of college and university presidents is how you return to normal campus operations when you’re a battlefield in the culture wars,” said Terry Hartle, senior vice president at the American Council on Education. “This something that is being fought out on every campus in the country, one by one.’’
Reporters covering this divisive time got tips during a virtual panel at the Education Writers Association’s 2021 Higher Education Seminar, which kicked off Oct. 18. Joining were Kim Hunter Reed, Louisiana’s commissioner of higher education, and Andrew Kelly, senior vice president for strategy and policy at the University of North Carolina System. Delece Smith-Barrow of Politico moderated the session.
Here are some highlights and key takeaways from the discussion.
“We’ve got to be careful about the potential for perverse incentives across the board for tuition pricing,” Kelly said.
Reed encouraged reporters to explore efforts to close equity gaps. Louisiana is looking for new ways to harness food stamps and other public benefits to ease barriers for low-income students, single parents, veterans and people in the justice system. Food insecurity, housing problems and transportation can be major hurdles to access. “If we don’t get there, we won’t have social mobility; we will not have the opportunity to move people from poverty to prosperity,” she said.
Others to try: Organizations representing private colleges; the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center; the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association; advocacy groups like the Education Trust.
The Southern Regional Education Board has a 2021 report on college affordability in 16 southern states.
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