Higher Ed Digitization Planning Ahead of Budget Season

I’ve spent a lot of time talking about Protecting the "And"—the idea that we must stop treating academic rigor and technical skill as a zero-sum game. (You can check out my blog series here: https://lnkd.in/etRAR4Ht) Currently, the Texas Education Agency is proposing rule changes regarding how dual credit courses should be weighted in high school GPAs. Under the proposal, CTE dual credit courses would be weighted less than "academic" dual credit courses. Let’s look at the practical impact: If these changes go through, a learner taking Anatomy, Broadcast News/Digital Media Writing, or Robot Programming and Diagnostics for college credit would see a lower boost to their GPA than a learner taking Intro to Biology, English Comp 101, or Intro to Psychology. Why does this matter? 1.  The Rigor Myth: It reinforces the outdated narrative that technical fields are "less than" traditional academic subjects, despite the high level of math, literacy, and science required in modern CTE. 2.  Learner Choice: When we devalue CTE courses in the GPA calculation, we inadvertently steer learners – and their families – away from the very technical pathways our economy desperately needs. 3.  The "And" is at Risk: We should be encouraging learners to be high-achieving academics AND skilled technical thinkers. This policy forces them to choose. To be clear: I am a proponent of high standards. Do some CTE courses need a second look to ensure they meet the same bar of rigor as core academics? Absolutely. But we shouldn't solve for rigor by devaluing an entire field. The TEA is currently accepting public comments on these rules. If appropriate, please share your perspective: https://lnkd.in/ex3RbmnK

Most founders building educational institutions get the sequence backwards. They obsess over accreditation first. They chase the prestige of being recognized by accrediting bodies, thinking it's the foundation everything else rests on. But accreditation isn't your first problem. State approval is. Here's what I notice happens: a founder gets excited about their program, designs something brilliant, hires qualified faculty, builds a curriculum. Then they discover they can't legally operate without clearing state requirements first. And suddenly they're scrambling to retrofit their entire operation to meet licensing standards they didn't anticipate. The order matters because each step unlocks the next one. State approval says you're legitimate and meet baseline standards. Accreditation says you're excellent and your students can access federal aid and transfer credits. You need the foundation before you can build the house. What's tricky is that state requirements vary wildly depending on where you're operating. One state might care deeply about financial viability projections. Another focuses on facility standards. A third scrutinizes your faculty credentials with intensity. Knowing your specific state's priorities before you build anything saves months of rework. If you're thinking about launching an educational institution, have you mapped out your state's specific approval pathway? Or are you building first and hoping the licensing pieces fall into place?

Don’t be the last to see why tracking academic program costs can protect mission-critical programs, spark innovation, and build trust in your college’s strategy. Read now! https://hubs.ly/Q04537j50

Behind every grant proposal is real pressure on educators and administrators. Explore the human side of grant writing and funding challenges in education. #EducationLeadership #Grants https://zurl.co/pdFRU

UC Clermont is expanding the use of Open Educational Resources to make learning more affordable for students. Faculty and librarians are replacing costly textbooks with free, high‑quality materials, easing financial pressure and improving access. With #OpenEducationWeek underway, it’s a great moment to share how this work is impacting our students. https://lnkd.in/gfuAuNW4

“The impact can be substantial. In one biology lab course, where 100–150 students enroll annually, switching from a traditional $120 lab manual to an open textbook has resulted in thousands of dollars in collective student savings each year”. The work we are doing is important, both for our students’ education and financial needs.

Many schools are getting close to the end of the budget year while also planning projects for the next one. This is usually when some long-standing ideas start getting revisited. Document scanning is often one of them. Boxes of student records. Transcripts. Old administrative files. Sometimes they’ve been sitting there for years because no one really wants to deal with them. If your school might finally tackle that project this year or next, it’s a good time to start planning. Out of curiosity, what types of records are schools finding hardest to manage right now? #K12 #SchoolAdministration #SchoolOperations #RecordsManagement #DocumentScanning #DigitalRecords

Know Your Faculty Best Advice on Becoming a Department Chair at a University Part 1 Far more professors avoid becoming department chairs at universities than aspire to those position. I'm not sure why. I had the opportunity to serve as a department chair at two universities for a total of 17.5 years. I enjoyed it for the most part. I mean all jobs have some down sides. One suggestion I have to new chairs is get to know your people. Here's how I did it when I moved to be chair at a new university where I didn't know any of the faculty. I asked each faculty member to send a copy of 1-2 of their publications that defined them as a scholar. (I wish I had said one; they all sent 2.) I read those publications and then took each one of them out to lunch at my own expense. At lunch we began the conversation by discussing their research. Of course, we moved on to other topics as well. I did this all before the first faculty meeting with them. Having those lunch meetings meant I knew something about each of them before the first meeting. I felt this activity was so valuable, that I decided to have an individual lunch with each faculty member each year. I did not read an article by them each year, but when I came up for renewal as chair after four years, I did repeat reading an article by each one again, and again four years later. I wanted to stay current with them. Some of you reading this have departments that are so large that this seems like an impossible task. If that is your case, divide that faculty into 2 or 3 groups and do a portion each year. That seems doable. Some of you are in universities where publishing scholarship is not common and so some or most faculty members won't have any published scholarship. In that case, I recommend having them share with you something related to their teaching--the syllabus for their favorite class, their favorite lesson plan or lecture--something that identifies them as a professor. Then have lunch with them and discuss it. Connecting with the faculty in this way paid dividends that I cannot really calculate. I know it made my job easier in the long run and was worth the time and effort. Next post--some more hints on how to continue to be a successful scholar while being a department chair.

📢 #EdWorkingPapers: Federal Work-Study (FWS) is designed to both help students finance college and connect them with work opportunities. Yet most research has focused on outcomes after students already enroll and participate in the program. In a new EdWorkingPaper, Veronica M. Minaya, Judith Scott-Clayton, and Adela Soliz examine the causal effects of receiving a Federal Work-Study offer using administrative data from a large public college system that includes both two- and four-year institutions. Using a difference-in-differences design, the authors find no overall enrollment effects, but meaningful increases in enrollment for community college students and independent students. They also find that receiving an FWS offer before the academic year begins increases program participation by 27 percentage points, though take-up remains incomplete. The findings highlight which student populations may be most responsive to Federal Work-Study offers and provide new evidence on how financial aid programs influence college access and participation. 📄 Read the full EdWorkingPaper: https://lnkd.in/eGFtz27j

Excited to share our new #EdWorkingPaper on Federal Work-Study (FWS). While most research focuses on students who already participate in FWS, this paper shifts attention earlier—to the offer itself. We examine how receiving an FWS offer shapes both enrollment and take-up decisions. We find no overall enrollment effects, but meaningful increases for community college and independent students, along with a 27 percentage point increase in program participation. This is an early step, and we’re continuing to build on these results as we develop the full academic paper—more to come. #HigherEducation #FinancialAid #WorkStudy #CommunityCollege #EducationPolicy #EconomicsOfEducation #EdResearch