Compiled by CHUCK STARESINIC
Among winners of Tuesday’s midterm elections were dozens of candidates, on both the federal and state level, with higher education ties. Annie Andrews, the senator-elect from South Carolina, is a pediatrics professor at the Medical University of South Carolina. Abdul El-Sayed, the senator-elect for Michigan, briefly worked as an assistant professor of epidemiology at Columbia University. Other victors include current and former professors, adjunct instructors, university staff and even one former employee of the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.
Also among those elected to Congress this month are a mathematician, a microbiologist and a chemical engineer. They plan, they say, to use their knowledge to combat what they see as the anti-science policies promoted by the current federal administration. The incoming scientists represent “a real repudiation of what has been two terrible years for science and public health,” said Shaughnessy Naughton, president of 314 Action, a group that recruits doctors and scientists to run for office.
Personnel cuts impact both public and private campuses. The University of Oregon is poised to cut more than 100 jobs as it navigates a $65 million budget deficit. Other institutions are making more modest cuts amid similar financial strains.
Colleges prepare for credit transfer regulations. While some colleges are already working to improve transfer policies and accepting more credits, Trump’s new standards likely will accelerate reforms. Students who transfer lose an average of 43 percent of the credits they’ve already earned, a federal study found. Stephen Pruitt, president of one of the nation’s largest accreditors, helped launch a voluntary program designed to improve the portability of institutions’ general education credits. Interest is high.
According to Forbes, federal rules set a floor for college value, but states can raise it. Next year, the federal government will start asking undergraduate programs that rely on federal student aid an important question: Do most of your graduates earn more than workers whose education ended with high school? Programs that fall short of this earnings test twice within three years could lose access to federal student loans, with the first losses possible in 2028.
An article from TribLive says that with the enrollment cliff looming, Pittsburgh-area colleges are adapting. Over the past five years, for example, online enrollment across Pitt’s master’s and professional programs has grown from about 4% of total enrollment in fall 2021 to nearly 24% this fall.
The Chronicle of Higher Education covers the federal administration’s plan to ‘Fundamentally Reshape’ Accreditation. The Education Department has released the final version of regulations to overhaul the accreditation system, with the stated goal of bolstering quality assurance in higher education. Supporters and critics anticipate the changes, which take effect in July, will be consequential for both accrediting agencies and accredited colleges and programs.
Preliminary undergraduate enrollment data shows slower growth, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Between fall 2024 and fall 2025, it increased 2.4 percent, but this fall it only climbed an additional 0.6 percent. While enrollment ticked up 1.2 percent at community colleges, public four-year institutions saw a 0.3 percent increase and private four-year institutions had no change.
The Pittsburgh Business Times explores a downside to the surge in college applications –more than 6 million rejections issued by U.S. colleges and universities to undergrads for that same academic period.
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports computer science is bleeding students, and it's not the first time. They suggest it’s not a discipline in decline but a momentary blip in a changing but still-relevant field. Each of the past valleys in hiring and majors has been followed by an even-higher peak. In the end, the enrollment and hiring cycles for computer science have “always been up and to the right,” according to Ed Lazowska, an emeritus professor of computer science at the University of Washington.
TribLive reports that state leaders and educators are debating the idea of a 3-year bachelor’s degree. Pitt Provost Joseph McCarthy said, “the open question for the shorter degree is not whether it prepares a graduate for the first job, it’s whether it can be designed to adapt to the fourth one. This is worth considering before widespread implementation and it should be explicitly assessed if we adopt this.”
Higher Ed Dive reports on undergraduate certificates that are most at risk of failing new earnings tests. Such certificates fail the U.S. Department of Education’s new accountability test at a rate of 29% — by far the highest rate of any credential — according to a new analysis by marketing and analytics firm Validated Insights.
The University of Delaware has launched a voluntary retirement incentive program for eligible staff as it seeks to slim its budget “to strengthen long-term financial sustainability.” The program is voluntary, according to the school’s announcement, but comes amid turbulent financial times for the university. Employees who are eligible for the program are being notified by the school’s human resources staff and informational meetings will be held in the coming weeks.
Chuck Staresinic is interim editor of the University Times. Reach him at chuck.s@pitt.edu.
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