Rethinking How Students Finance Higher Education

by Presidents Forum | Jul 21, 2026 | Outcomes and Accountability, Policy

Rethinking How Students Finance Higher Education

For many students, the biggest barrier to earning a degree isn’t getting admitted—it’s figuring out how to pay for it.

As recent federal policy changes reshape financial aid and today’s learners balance work, family, military service, and education, institutions are looking beyond traditional funding models to help students complete their degrees. Leaders from National University, NCHER, and CLASP joined the Presidents Forum to discuss how colleges, employers, lenders, and policymakers can work together to create more sustainable pathways to affordability.

Today’s students need more flexible financing

Today’s learners are very different from the traditional college student for whom many financial aid systems were originally designed.

Many students are working full-time, raising families, serving in the military, or returning to college after years in the workforce. At the same time, recent changes to federal student aid have reduced borrowing capacity for some students, making it even more important to understand all available financing options.

Paying for college requires shared responsibility

Federal aid remains the foundation of college affordability, but the panel argued that it can no longer carry the entire burden.

Institutions are expanding scholarship programs, employers are investing in tuition assistance and student loan repayment, and responsible private financing can help students bridge unavoidable funding gaps. Workforce shortages in healthcare, manufacturing, and other high-demand industries are also encouraging employers to invest directly in the talent they need.

Transparency matters

Students and families need straightforward information about tuition, fees, financing options, and the long-term affordability of a degree—not just during enrollment, but throughout their academic journey.

The panel encouraged institutions to provide more personalized financial counseling, helping students understand the full range of funding options available before financial challenges become barriers to completion.

Student success begins with financial success

Financial aid is no longer simply an enrollment function.

When students unexpectedly encounter funding gaps, many stop out despite being academically successful. Helping students develop a sustainable financial plan from enrollment through graduation improves persistence, completion, and workforce readiness.

Supporting students financially is one of the most effective student success strategies institutions can adopt.

The bottom line

Helping more students earn a college credential will require collaboration across higher education, employers, lenders, and government.

The future of college affordability isn’t a single funding source—it’s a coordinated ecosystem that gives students clear information, flexible financing options, and the support they need to reach graduation.

Transcript

Wes Smith (00:01.661)
Welcome everyone. Today we’re discussing how students are financing higher education beyond federal aid, including private financing options, employer-supported education, and other models that will help students and families navigate paying for a higher education. I’m joined today by Amy Glynn from National University. Amy’s also a visiting fellow at the President’s Forum.

Alex Ricci, the president of the National Council of Higher Education Resources, also known as NCHAR, and David Kafafian, the COO of CLASP. So thanks to our distinguished panel for joining us today and welcome.

David Kafafian (00:42.742)
Thanks for it.

Wes Smith (00:44.467)
Let’s let’s start with question the first question on on the top, Amy, can you set the stage for us? Why is this discussion about how students are funding their education? Why is it important in this moment?

Amy Glynn (01:16.635)
Well, I think we’re seeing several trends really converging at once. First, we have students who are facing greater financial uncertainty, right? While federal aid remains the foundation of college affordability, it’s often not enough to cover the tuition and fees, to say nothing about the full cost of attendance. And paying for college isn’t just about tuition, it’s about including books, supplies, living expenses.

David Kafafian (01:24.118)
Yeah.

Amy Glynn (01:41.426)
Tied right into that. Secondly, is the fact that learners themselves have changed. The profile of who we are supporting in college and paying for college is not the same. Nearly three-quarters of today’s college students are considered non-traditional. They are students and they’re working. They’re students and they’re supporting families. They’re students and they’re serving in the mid military, or they’re returning to education after years in the workforce, right?

Wes Smith (02:06.077)
And and Amy, you have a term for that at National.

Amy Glynn (02:09.489)
We do. We like to call these students anders because, like I said, they’re students and something or many other things in life. And we need to ensure that we are educating and serving the whole student that comes to our institution. And so financing needs have changed and they don’t.

Wes Smith (02:12.373)
Okay.

Amy Glynn (02:31.921)
For our ANDRES or our non-traditional students, they don’t always fit the traditional academic calendars or assumptions built into the federal aid programs. And then the third thing I’m gonna say is that institutions and employers are recognizing that financing is no longer just a financial aid conversation. It’s a conversation about student success. It’s a conversation about completion. When students can’t bridge that relatively small funding gap, they often stop out.

Right, even when they’re in good ad but academic standing, the number one reason that students cite for leaving school is broadly financing. And that is a huge issue. And so to create more interest in responsible employer partnership, private financing options, payments, other solutions that can all complement the federal system.

That’s where we’re all trying to work together to figure out what are those solutions for the future of higher education and the success of our students. And that’s why I’m actually super excited to have both CLASP and NSHAR who are doing great work in this space to have a conversation about some of the things that institutions are doing, some of the innovation that is happening in the funding model, and to figure out how we can really start to serve students financially in a more holistic manner.

Wes Smith (03:53.971)
Right. Amy, I love the I love the setup. Alex, I know, I know that this is the heart of what you do. I’m and there’s there’s really nobody that feels this finance pressure quite like the institutions, but an extension of that is is your work at NShare. And you’re working on on ways that students can navigate this and get a higher education. What are you seeing out there? Why is this moment different?

Alex Ricci (04:23.045)
Well I

Appreciate you inviting me to this conversation. You’re exactly right. This is a really pivotal moment for many students and families as well as institutions. And driving most of the headlines are massive changes that Congress passed and the president signed into law last July fourth, so in 2025, with an implementation date of July one of this year. So just several weeks ago at the time of this recording. And so these massive public policy changes, which include things like new loan limits, both annual and aggregate.

In the federal student loan program, as well as scheduled reduction, which is a sort of fancy term to describe how now, if you’re a student attending less than full-time, you don’t necessarily qualify for that full loan amount. These changes are putting massive pressures on students and families that are well known in higher education, and new students that are entering for the first time who thought that they would have a certain amount of aid available to them and no longer.

Do. And when you combine that large change, we’re talking about something around $85 billion in new federal student loans that were dispersed in the last award year. Combined with all of the pressures that Amy mentioned, we’re looking at an environment that’s really difficult to navigate. So it’s important to have this conversation to focus on what entities are doing to step up and take a holistic approach to solving this problem for students and families.

Wes Smith (05:48.595)
Right. So you’ve seen and we’ve all seen a lot of changes starting July one, and they’re impacting the way that that the funding is available for different students pursuing different programs. I I know David that you’re on the front lines of this. And so I’m gonna ask a question to all the panelists, but I wanna hear from each of your vantage points w what are the most viable non federal options that you’re seeing right now that will help students. But David, I wanna start that with you.

David Kafafian (06:19.413)
Yeah. thank you again for having me and yes, thank you as Amy said for having me back. so look, first things first, we still want to respect that students should think about grants and savings first. They should then think about what federal loan options they have available. and then after that, that’s where the conversation really begins because these new loan caps, as as Alex and Amy talked about, will limit many students to twenty thousand, twenty thousand five hundred, fifty thousand, depending on what limit affects them per annum.

and that frequently will not cover the cost of their tuition fees, just room board, et cetera. I think many people think that the private market, the Sally Mays and Sofis and college ads of the world are going to just plug the hole left by the federal government. And we know that that’s not true. 96% of undergraduate private student loans are co-signed, 73%, as of last time I checked, of graduate loans, graduate private student loans are co-signed.

That means that if you are from an immigrant family and your parents don’t have a FIGO that carried here to the US, you’re from a lower middle income family. You’re a graduate student whose parents have just said, we’re done. We’ve done our part. There are many instances where a student will not have access to that private loan. And so then that’s where the kind of innovations need to begin. There’s two things that we see working here at Class that we’re thrilled to partner with schools and employers on. The first is on the access side.

where we work with universities that who themselves are offering gap loans as a loan of the last resort for their students, not requiring cosign or being properly disclosed under Regzi and you know meeting all of the compliance requirements that you would expect of anybody else. But ultimately these are programs that schools are offering and that they’re not making money on. They they lose money on these programs, but it is a way for a student to persist because there’s nothing worse than the student who has to stop out because they have a $7,000 gap. and then they end up with getting no degree.

That’s bad for them, that’s bad for society. School has a graduation rate hit and a potentially a cohort default rate risk. So that’s option one is is schools to actually step in and support their students here. Option two, and one that we also love working on, is is actually working with employers. So go to the the the end of the value chain where students are ultimately trying to get to and work with them to either provide provide tuition assistance programs or student loan repayment as a benefit. And so

David Kafafian (08:37.281)
This won’t work in every part of the economy. It needs to be in a place where frankly employers need more talent than currently exists. But throughout clinical health care, we know a class that there’s you know 50 some odd health systems that have already signed on with us to offer anywhere from thirty thousand to a hundred and eighty thousand dollars of loan repayment on the back end. So the student still has to go get their own loan funding. but then once they graduate and pass licensure, every month that they work at that employer, they’re getting five hundred, a thousand, two thousand dollars a month.

directly to their loan servicers. and so again, I think there’s plentiful opportunities that that can exist. healthcare’s not the only place, but it’s the place that that we’ve we’re focused on here at Class.

Wes Smith (09:14.739)
Yeah. Alex, I I want you to weigh in on the employer as a funder in higher education. I we we’re seeing that, you know, specifically with what what David mentioned and and the programs in healthcare that they’re working on. have you seen this employer funding, you know, the step up from employers in a wider array than more than just healthcare, or where are we seeing those types of programs?

Alex Ricci (09:45.144)
Employers want a qualified workforce. And right now, colleges and universities are the ones that are doing the lion’s share of providing that educated workforce of the future. And so we do see a number of employers that are stepping up. David mentioned that healthcare is a big one, and for very good reason. We have an aging population and there’s just always a a need for those kinds of individuals to assist in every stage of life. But we do see other industries that are beginning to pop up and show more interest in helping fund

A student’s education and it spans more than just healthcare. So, a couple of examples include advanced manufacturing. We see a lot of emphasis now being put on trades, what we would consider historically blue-collar work as we look to build out more energy infrastructure, as we seek to build out artificial intelligence infrastructure. These kinds of jobs that power that economy are really in demand. And so employers that are performing that work are more than happy to help do tuition reimbursement or

other types of partnerships at the front end, not necessarily student loan repayment, to make sure that these students have the money that they need to complete that program.

Wes Smith (10:53.673)
Right. Right. I’ve seen I I I mean recently I saw that Meta is working on you mentioned the you know the energy infrastructure and the and and the work that goes into that, that they’re funding some some trades that that will help that workforce. I’ve seen, you know, in the microchip manufacturing sec sector, we’ve seen strategic investments that that businesses and employers are stepping up there. And and I think that this is, you know, more

Of a trend, hopefully, that we’ll see moving forward into the future. Amy, anything that you want to add to non-federal options that we’re seeing and and that people should be aware of?

Amy Glynn (11:35.027)
well, I I think there’s two things that I I want to address. The first is when I look at financing of education, I think about who gets the benefit of it of that education, right? Society gets the benefit when we have more a more educated population and there is able to be better a better

ready workforce. And so that’s where the federal government and taxpayers are investing in the federal financial aid system. Institutions benefit, obviously, we are in the business of bettering the lives and of providing education. And that’s where we see institutions investing in scholarshipping and discounting programs to support students. The student is obviously committing a financial obligation in the loans that they are taking and the time commitment that they are providing.

And then the fourth one is employers. And so really to the conversation about the employer investment who is benefiting directly from the education that a student receives to me, like that’s the quadrant we need to look at in resolving the funding gap. This in addition to that though, I am gonna say like we’re talking about the back end of the equation. And if we’re gonna talk about the back end of the equation, we have to talk about the math that goes into the front end. And that means that we need to be talking about

How we are pricing higher education, how we are having cost transparency.

What those pricing models look like, how we drive operational efficiency in higher education, how we reduce the cost and the confusion that students are facing when they are making a selection. I don’t want to oversimplify this, but I’m in Arizona and there’s this car dealership, and they offer what’s called no bull pricing. And they literally tell you: we are going to tell you exactly what the price.

Amy Glynn (13:29.736)
Is for the car. There’s no games, there’s no like, like, here’s what we paid, here are the add-ons, and here’s what we’re gonna charge you, and we’re not gonna, we’re not gonna haggle. Right. And like that idea of having a window sticker where a student understands exactly how much the education is, what comes with that price, and what their funding options are is a place that we need to get to. So I really believe in simplification of our pricing model.

transparency of our pricing model so we understand what is the financial end that we need to come up with at the end.

Wes Smith (14:06.759)
Amy, I you’re you’re speaking like somebody who may have gone through this process recently with a child and seen this firsthand.

Amy Glynn (14:15.184)
I mean, I’m speaking as someone who has spent over 20 years in the financial aid industry and who has also helped their own child through a really horrific process of trying to understand the cost associated with her education and what options were truly available to us. And I will say, being where we sit.

in the the income quadrants that we sit in, there’s not a lot of options unless we want to be, you know, $60,000 in debt every year for our child’s education.

Wes Smith (15:02.495)
Right. Right. I I I love the perspective that it brought going through it. Like not only have you been a professional in it for 20 years, and we’ve had this conversation before here at the presence forum on a podcast. It’s just stunning to me that a professional who knows the the industry in and out still, when you go through the process personally and you’re dealing with a lot of different institutions.

It’s tough to navigate. I can only imagine how hard it is for parents that have no expertise in this area. It’s not, they’re not professionals. They haven’t, you know, been been doing it for decades, and and they’re thrown in to the same kind of chaos. That’s this is this is a tough thing for parents and students to navigate. There’s no question about that.

Amy Glynn (15:51.795)
So I will tell you, orientation was orientation was two weeks ago. We registered for courses. She registered for the exact courses that her advisor suggested. We get a note two two days later. Hey, just wanted to let you know there’s a tuition overload fee. And I was like, how much how many credits did the tuition cover? I thought it covered up to 18. And it was like, I don’t know. I can’t find it. I’m like, great, we can’t find it on the website. Let’s call. Right. And like

David Kafafian (15:51.989)
And what’s the card?

Amy Glynn (16:21.551)
I knew what I had to look for. The information was not there. And here we are: tuition overload fee.

Wes Smith (16:30.355)
Yeah, you need some no bull pricing. I I heard

Amy Glynn (16:32.818)
Apparently, if you want to take more than 16 credits at Institution X, you need to pay an additional $252.

Wes Smith (16:41.737)
Yeah, it’s it’s a wild process and and it can be frustrating, I know. And and this is, you know, this is one of the reasons that it’s you know, if you pull Americans today on issues that that they’re facing, consistently student loans are and and student finance, you know, financing of higher education is on people’s mind. And there’s a reason for that. It’s not just because, you know, it is is because people go through it, they’re frustrated, and then they see the outcome.

And they’re like, I I how did I get in the position I’m in? So this is a really timely conversation. yep.

David Kafafian (17:18.241)
Well, so I can put some if I could put some like some some precise numbers on it because this hasn’t been publicly released yet, but we we had just commissioned a a study of students ourselves here at Clasp and

As of 36 hours ago, so you know, you’ll you’ll hear it first. some ones that stood out to me in no particular order. 51% of students have considered dropping out for financial reasons, 20% have seriously considered it, 78% report monthly financial strain of some kind. and then the one that is again specific to the sector that we focus on, healthcare, but I I think it is very telling. 61% say becoming a healthcare professional is not realistic without family wealth or outside support. That is like

Wes Smith (17:33.825)
perfect.

David Kafafian (18:00.194)
Horrifying state of affairs. Any one of us, 100% of the population, can be a patient of healthcare at any given time. And so when you see numbers like that, paired with everything Amy just shared, you understand why employers are coming to the table. I think employers, you know, this administration has tried to pull employers further in. And I just think that the the the brass hacks of it all, what I just laid out, means that employers who used to kind of say that our education

and the financing of was kind of upstream of them. It wasn’t where they needed to pay their attention. They are increasingly becoming aware that their talent pipelines and their viability is at risk without going upstream themselves and thinking about how to support students and families there. And of course, you know, risk sharing doesn’t mean that the employers will take all of the risk. They will not pin the full check no matter what. And so I I think innovative models that do actually provide risk sharing, but the student owns their own.

academic success. and the employers then share in some of or all the costs on the back end, I think is, you know, just one of the many ways that this can happen. But but again, the the the path we’re going down is not sustainable given the numbers I just share.

Wes Smith (19:08.605)
Yeah, absolutely. And and great that’s great, that’s great information to have. Very timely. Thanks for sharing that, David. Alex, I want to come your way, but I wanna I wanna swap slightly. While there is employer help that’s needed, we we have to have employers engaged. They’re filling a a a very important gap, especially in in industries of high need. But I also don’t want to

miss the institutions role in this, the higher ed institutions. How can higher education institutions help students navigate options that might be available and and do it in a responsible way to, you know, keep costs as low as possible?

Alex Ricci (19:54.887)
Well, three items come to mind. I had four, but Amy hit the nail on the head when she talked about examining the pricing of programs and cost transparency for students and families. I think that that’s paramount. You have to make sure that on the front end those things are done well. But taking a lesson learned from private student lenders and other participants in the nonprofit counseling world, one thing that NCHAR members in particular make sure that they do is sit down with that would-be borrower and have a very open conversation about.

About what it means to take out a loan. What does it mean for their long-term projection and what they want to pursue in life? And these things are understood, it’s interactive, it’s personal. And so similarly, I think that there could be a lesson there for institutions of education. How do we step up our counseling and student success efforts? Because at the end of the day, we would hate to have that student drop out for reasons that could be that $252 charge that you didn’t know you were gonna have, and you had only set your budget or your financing according to

According to what you thought you had to pay. obviously it can be much more dramatic than $250 as well. It could be a blown flat tire. And so making sure that you set those things not just up and you have the infrastructure, but that students and families are aware of it. I think that would be item number one that I would flag for institutions of higher education. The second item that I would highlight for institutions of higher education, college, universities, no matter what population you serve, is to talk to other entities in your area. So it’s not

Just employers, it’s high school counselors, it’s foundations in the area, community development foundations. How are your programs educating that workforce of the future so that your students, when they graduate, get into employment or pursue their passion in a way that’s productive for the institution in the long run and students in the community that you serve? And finally, it’s not the end-all be-all solution, but increasingly, students and families will rely on private education loans to help.

Finance their way through school. And that there is an obligation or an opportunity for institutions to put out an RFP and do a preferred lender list and point students and families to those lenders that you have vetted that maybe have the best interest rates or the best backend benefits or payment assistance benefits. Maybe these are lenders that are going to take responsibly, take a risk and lend to a borrower that has either a very thin.

Alex Ricci (22:24.446)
Credit file or no credit history, but they’re in a program that’s going to lead to economic mobility. And so laying these options, pointing students and families to those responsible actors is something institutions should take advantage of now so that students and families aren’t left out on their own and make poor decisions as a consequence of not having good information in front of them.

Wes Smith (22:47.197)
Alex, I I love, you know, well, all three of the of those points very valid. I I love the second point that you made there on there there are resources and there are opportunities that that students can take advantage of that are that are local resources or state level resources that are driving workforce issues, driving workforce opportunity. And I’ve seen that personally in in young people who are.

In high school and are put on a pathway to a workforce opportunity in high school that can then be compounded on in higher education. Do you have any specific things that you’ve seen in that where you’ve said, wow, that is a really great program that has has helped on the workforce trajectory that keeps costs low and you know, kind of is an add-on.

before you even get to higher education. I’m I’m curious if any of our panelists have seen opportunities like that.

Alex Ricci (23:54.034)
just to clarify your question, you’re asking, are there any interesting partnerships out there between private stakeholders and institutions that have helped pave the way for credit advancement or keeping college more affordable?

Wes Smith (24:09.085)
Yeah, well, I’m I’m just thinking like like there are workforce pathways now that have I know in the state of Utah there are workforce pathways in advanced manufacturing that begin in high school. And that you can you can get into these pathways and you have opportunities in in higher education that that wouldn’t be available necessarily to you. And I thought that, you know, that was that that that’s one of the issues that that you had called out of.

maybe there there are ways that you can leverage that that pathway, those exp that expertise that’s available even before higher education.

Alex Ricci (24:49.329)
Yeah, there’s there’s absolutely resources out there that can assist students and families, whether and it’s not just dual enrollment, credit for prior learning assessments exist all over the place, including at many institutions of higher education, where not just that traditional high school student going right out of high school and into a post-secondary program can benefit, but adult learners that are coming back that want to get that credential, they’ve learned a little something, they have experience, but they don’t necessarily

Have that diploma that signifies that they have certain competencies. And so building these things out is something institutions can do. It’s something employers in the community can help assist with, in addition to just the mere financing side of it. I would call out there there is a growing number of what’s called pay it forward programs or evolving door loan funds that are 0% or 1% interest rate loan programs that certain public entities or foundations have established.

And sometimes they are narrowly defined for nursing or radiology. But sometimes they’re not. Sometimes it’s HVAC and welding. And these are the sorts of programs. I know of one in New Jersey, which is a 0% interest rate loan program where it’s not just the loan, but there’s these wraparound supports that exist because employers in the area stepped up, the state government stepped up, a foundation stepped up. So participants, these students and families, they not just don’t just get that loan, which is great, that 0% interest rate loan.

loan, but they get a living siphon. They have access to mental health counseling to help them succeed. They have these other wraparound support services that guide them through the program. So when they take that leap from high school to college, they know exactly what they have to do in order to succeed.

Wes Smith (26:37.021)
And and that I like the idea that that can be tied to institutions of higher education can help guide and help bring those resources, surface them to potential students. And and I would love to see more institutions be expert, you know, have that expertise available for potential students so they can take advantage of all those resources.

David Kafafian (27:02.485)
Well, so I I I obviously I’m not a financial aid professional myself, but I work with many of them. I would certainly echo what you just said there. And I would say that anything that the Department of Ed or policymakers can do to give clarity, whether it’s through a dear colleague letter or otherwise, to universities and financial administrators about what they can speak about, because that too frequently I see financial aid administrators take the position of all we can do is a historical list that just brain dumps every lender that’s ever given ever lent to our students and nothing more.

And we’re in a moment where that is extremely not consumer friendly. Like I don’t blame the schools. I understand the fear that exists there, but that’s not helpful to a student or family. They’re getting a database unsorted or unfiltered to them. They’re not typically seeing many of the state options that are newly released here and plugged into any of these pay it forward funds that Alex is speaking about. so I I don’t envy being a university here, but I also don’t envy being a student or family for the reasons Amy said on that side of it.

I think it would be really, really helpful in this moment for the department to give some guidance around, you know, schools being able to lean in and not preference private lenders, but actually give students a bit more of a tailored bit of guidance so that there’s a better customer experience at the end of the day for the student who’s trying to navigate how do I think between workforce funding and state level funding and like a you know a state state agency and a traditional private lender and something else. And so it’s a tough moment, but it’s one that everybody’s gotta work together.

Wes Smith (28:23.391)
Right.

Wes Smith (28:30.097)
Amy, what’s your perspective on that from the institution side?

Amy Glynn (28:35.357)
Yeah, so there is there is plenty of leeway for universities to be able to talk, educate, and advise on funding options for students without offering preferential treatment. Right. We have had preferred lender lists. I don’t know, Alex, I feel like you probably know for exactly how long. I’m gonna say over a decade, within within higher education, which which is one of the gateways for us to make sure.

Sure, that we are speaking about lenders that align their products and their services appropriately to their students. I can tell you at National, when we started hearing about the changes, we did decide to go down the road of doing an RFI for a preferred lender list. Not telling stories out of school here, but as a veteran-founded institution, if that private lender

Did not offer full deferment options for a student who was deployed in active military service, the lender was eliminated from our list. We aligned the student protections to things that were important to us at our institution based on our mission and the support that we wanted to provide. So there are tools. Schools, school being a financial aid professional, right? The audit.

The program review, super scary thing. The department doesn’t come with like a warm batch of cookies telling you thank you so much for following the rules. They come with a hammer and they’re like, you didn’t follow the rules. and so I get it, it’s scary and the loss of title four is incredibly, incredibly scary for an institution.

So I’m gonna say my advice, financial aid professionals, your GC is your best friend, right? Your general counsel is your best friend, have conversations, see what you can do, find ways to be creative to ensure that we are advising students around all of their options. And that’s what Alex really talked about, right? Like that need to be able to have highly personalized conversations with students about what college is gonna cost, what their funding options are, and laying out all of the options to them and ensuring.

Amy Glynn (30:48.104)
That is not a one-time conversation. Financial aid advising is no longer a nice to have. It is a student success strategy that if your institution does not do it, well.

You are not serving your students and you are not serving yourself in any way. So if you’re an institution that’s like, this is a place I can really get better, there are a lot of institutions who are being really innovative, making great strides. They’re looking at their success models and figuring out how do we bring the conversation of finances and financial barriers to the forefront and address them proactively instead of reactively.

Wes Smith (31:29.405)
Yeah, well stated, Amy. That is absolutely correct. Our our institutions today, if they’re not being proactive on this, they’re missing. They’re missing a huge opportunity. And I like that you you mentioned that it’s all about student success. Financing is not it’s not a peripheral issue. It is it is right up front, and we have to be able to address that as institutions if we’re gonna have students be successful. So

Let me wrap this up. I I would just like to give each of you an opportunity to think through, you know, the big picture on this. But t give us give us one principle that students and families should use when they’re evaluating their options to pay for an education. What’s what’s one thing that they should know going in from your perspective that would be helpful for them to keep like right at the forefront?

I’ll I’ll start David, I’ll start with you and then Alex come your way and then Amy, I’ll give you the last word.

David Kafafian (32:33.523)
And one one principle is hard to to pin down. I I actually would start even before the financing question. And it’s it’s around is the program there and the un institution they’re attending, does the cost and value make sense to them? because it’s it’s a purchasing decision at the end of the day, and people don’t like to talk about school that way, but it absolutely is. And for many families, there is no good way to solve needing to finance a program that has an eighty thousand dollar cost of attendance.

and so I think starting with what is the cost of the program? And that again it would be easier in the in the way that Amy had described it if we got some noble pricing, but what is the cost of the program? How does it map to the value you expect? I I would actually encourage families to start right then and there because there are a ton of careers that we desperately need in the the current and the future workforce. and I think you know students focusing their attention there is the starting point to them then finding what is the pathway to financing that makes most sense for them.

Wes Smith (33:07.305)
Mm-hmm.

Wes Smith (33:33.063)
Right. The the value proposition of of the credential that you’re pursuing. Okay, that makes sense. Alex, w what’s your advice? what’s your your one principle that you would encourage, you know, parents and students to to look into?

David Kafafian (33:37.985)
Absolutely.

Alex Ricci (33:49.244)
If David’s one principle was take a long-term perspective and view your career goals in line with your educational program, I think mine builds off of that. Oftentimes, once you’ve done that, once you know kind of what you want to do or the program that you think will allow you the flexibility to pursue a career of your choosing, you just want to sign on the dotted line. Just okay, tell me where I need to sign to get the money I need to go to this school to to get on with my life. And my advice would be shop.

compare. I think Amy gave a great example earlier in this conversation when they were vetting private lenders and what mattered to their population of students and and their their founders of the institution, you know, they weren’t going to go with a lender that wasn’t going to have a full deferral for active duty military service members. Well similarly, like if the military is your thing, don’t just sign up with a private lender that has the lowest rate if you’re gonna have interest accrual when you’re active duty. So take the time to shop around to identify

the options that make the most sense. Frequently, that time pressure is real and you just want to get the money in your bank account as soon as possible or over to the institution. So my rule of thumb is shop and compare. There are lots of options out there and the more time you take to do that right, though your future self will thank you.

Wes Smith (35:06.917)
I I I love the advice and it gets us back to one of Amy’s, you know, observations. This this idea that it’s not as transparent as it seems. So there’s a lot of work to do. When you’re saying shop and compare, you’re saying do the homework, it’s worth it at the end of the day. Yeah. Okay. So Amy, we’ll give you the last word here. what what principle

Coming from a financial aid professional and somebody who’s just recently done this, what would you encourage parents and students to do?

Amy Glynn (35:37.588)
So this is the advice I gave my daughter when we were shopping for schools. I said, your choice about where you go to school is a trifecta. You need to start with the personal fit of the institution. Is the institution the right size for you? Is it in the right location? Is it in the right environment? Do you feel comfortable on campus?

Is it an academic fit for you? Does the institution that you are choosing offer the program that you are interested in and the quality or reputation of program that you desire?

And is it a financial fit? When we look at the cost and the funding available, can we afford this in year one? And do we have a sustainable funding path to be able to afford your entire four-year degree at that institution? Are you comfortable?

With the debt and the financial obligations that you’re signing on to for the next 10 to 20 years. Are your father and I comfortable and capable of signing on to the financial obligations? Right. And so it’s really looking at finding an institution that meets the personal, the academic, and the financial fit for the student profile and their family. And I will say there is an institution out there for everybody.

But you need to continue to look until you find the right fit. Trying to make a square peg fit into a round hole. Sorry, I couldn’t remember the shapes there for a moment. Trying trying to make a square peg fit into a round hole when it comes to choosing a college is not going to work. It’s going to result in stopping out.

Amy Glynn (37:22.354)
it is going to result in you wasting time, money, and energy and having disappointment. And so we really need to commit to finding that right fit.

Wes Smith (37:33.009)
I I love your observation. It and it we it could get lost if if we don’t pull this out, but it’s not just about year one of the cost. You have to be able to see year two, three, and four. Like the financial the viability all the way through is important because there are students who get a, you know, a a different price for year one. And that’s not the same price they’re gonna have all all the way through. So that could be a problem. So

I’m glad that you pointed that out, Amy. But to all of our panelists, thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks for bringing your expertise in and having this conversation with the Presidents Forum. We look forward to having you all back on topics similar to this and right in your wheelhouse so we can we can provide content to our listeners that’ll be helpful moving forward. So thanks for joining.

How Technology Could Modernize Accreditation in Higher Education

by Presidents Forum | Jul 10, 2026 | Innovation, Policy

How Technology Could Modernize Accreditation in Higher Education

Higher education has embraced technology to improve teaching, learning, and student support.

According to Alison Griffin, it’s time to apply that same thinking to accreditation.

In a policy paper for the American Enterprise Institute, Griffin examined how industries such as healthcare and financial services use technology to strengthen quality assurance. Her conclusion: higher education has an opportunity to move beyond periodic compliance reviews toward more continuous, outcomes-focused quality improvement. Her full paper provides additional detail on the framework and recommendations.

Learning from other industries

Healthcare and financial services use real-time data to identify potential problems before they become crises.

For example, hospitals monitor key performance indicators continuously, allowing leaders to spot bottlenecks and intervene quickly instead of waiting months for a formal review.

Griffin argues that higher education could adopt a similar mindset by using technology to monitor institutional performance throughout the accreditation cycle rather than relying primarily on episodic reviews.

Focusing on outcomes instead of paperwork

One challenge Griffin highlights is the sheer volume of documentation involved in accreditation.

Some accrediting reviews involve hundreds of thousands of pages of material, making meaningful analysis difficult and limiting opportunities for timely feedback.

Technology creates an opportunity to shift attention away from managing documents and toward understanding outcomes.

Institutions already collect data on student retention, completion, financial health, enrollment trends, and workforce outcomes. Rather than waiting years between reviews, those indicators could help institutions identify emerging challenges and respond sooner.

Using data to strengthen peer review

Griffin is not arguing for replacing peer review.

Instead, she believes technology can make peer review more effective.

If institutions identify declining performance through continuous monitoring, accrediting organizations could connect them with peer institutions demonstrating strong results in those areas, creating opportunities for collaboration and improvement rather than simply evaluating compliance.

Technology should reduce compliance—not add to it

Griffin cautions that technology should not become another layer of institutional reporting.

Instead, its purpose should be helping institutions identify issues earlier, improve student outcomes, and strengthen quality assurance without increasing administrative burden.

As Griffin puts it, continuous monitoring should help institutions “address problems before they become a crisis, not attempt to create a whole new compliance industry.”

The bottom line

Technology has transformed quality assurance in industries where continuous improvement is essential.

Griffin believes higher education has an opportunity to do the same by using data to identify challenges earlier, focus accreditation on meaningful outcomes, and create a system that better supports both institutions and the students they serve.

Transcript

Wes Smith (01:20.952)
Hey Allison, good to see ya. Welcome to the podcast.

Alison Griffin (01:31.353)
Great to see you, Wes. Thanks for having me.

Wes Smith (01:34.488)
Hey, I I know you’ve been doing a lot of thinking around accreditation. And we we’ve had we have you on the show to talk through a little bit about accreditation and about large cycle, what’s happening in higher education, especially in terms of technology and how that’s impacting everything. And that’s a kind of a new conversation for us. What what is technology doing in terms of accreditation? You’ve done some thinking on that. Can you tell us a little bit about what you’ve done there?

Alison Griffin (02:04.144)
Absolutely. So about a year ago, I was asked by the American Enterprise Institute to write a policy paper on a topic of my choosing related to accreditation. And the thing that struck me most about accreditation was that we don’t often talk about technology when it comes to quality assurance. And so I asked my colleagues at AEI if I could actually explore this concept in a little bit more depth. And so as I got in

To that research, that desk research, I started to uncover that there are a number of industries that rely on technology for their quality assurance frameworks and their processes in a much more intimate way than what any of our accreditors across the higher education landscape do today. And so I took the pen, truly pen to paper, and started writing on this topic. And what I uncovered.

was was pretty interesting, particularly when it comes to documentation that our institutions are creating and producing for the quality review process.

Wes Smith (03:16.758)
It it doesn’t surprise me that education isn’t on the cutting edge of quality assurance monitoring using technology, but what are some industries that that you found were more on the cutting edge?

Alison Griffin (03:29.26)
absolutely. So, well, the two that I spent some time exploring in depth were healthcare, not a surprise, and financial services, also not a surprise. The similarities with healthcare is that they have a joint commission that actually evolved from episodic site visits to ongoing quality assurance indicators.

one of the examples that I was able to learn a lot more about was at Johns Hopkins. They run this patient flow dashboard with 10 KPIs, and administrators are able to spot quickly bottlenecks instead of seeing that months later. And so I just started thinking about what if we were to apply that same concept in the institution context. You know, all of our institutions have.

KPIs or strategy frameworks, they all show up differently. But what if you actually built a dashboard where you started to see some of those bottlenecks in the data that might be coming through? You know, whether they’re financial indicators or whether it’s staff transition or even student enrollment numbers, where institutions could be a little bit more just in time responsive as opposed to months or years later.

catching some of these issues.

Wes Smith (04:59.054)
I love in in higher ed, we take our accreditations seriously. And there are so many people that want to see accreditation to protect, you know, consumers. That being said, there is no more important industry for quality assurance than healthcare. It it is literally life and death in healthcare. And and those KPIs are saving people’s lives, right? They’re saying, hey, we have a problem here. We need fast intervention.

And so you it sounds like what you’re saying is if it’s good enough for for financial services, if it’s good enough for the healthcare sector, why aren’t we taking some notes from that and figuring out how we can have faster intervention in higher education? Does that sound about right?

Alison Griffin (05:44.901)
That sounds about right. I, you know, I think today our creditors are asking institutions essentially like, how can we help you make your case? Whereas I started asking the question, like, what do the data actually show? And so, what do the data show? How can we start looking at the outcomes of our institutions instead of trying to fit into

What our quality assurance framework wants us to be.

Wes Smith (06:18.774)
Right, right. Okay, so if you’re if you’re applying this to accreditation and you’re you’re saying, okay, we have so much information, we can we can review it, you know, as in real time, essentially, and we can have faster remedies for troubling situations. Can you give us an example or two about what higher education is in a position to monitor right now?

on a regular basis that we don’t monitor.

Alison Griffin (06:50.64)
Sure. I’d like to start by just giving your listeners an example that I laid out in the paper. And that was my review of some Department of Education records and the requirement that they have for agencies, so the accreditation agency, to produce documentation on what they’re doing. And the example was one of the

regional accreditors, I guess now operating, of course, across regions, produced over 800,000 pages for their review. So you think about even half of that, right? We’ll take 400,000 pages. A single reviewer who is reading 40 pages an hour, it’s gonna take them five years to do that work.

Wes Smith (07:43.362)
That is wild.

Alison Griffin (07:45.307)
Right. And so that’s that’s the and this is probably not a topic for today’s conversation, but you know, that’s the federal government’s oversight of the accreditor. And then you think about the accreditors’ oversight of all the institutions and or programs in its purview. And so if if if our agencies, our accrediting agencies aren’t staffed to be able to do

You know, this review, we are leaving institutions without a review that provides them with the feedback and opportunity for improvement that they may actually be seeking. And so your question about, you know, what what could technology aid in right now? There are a couple of things I feel like our institutions are ready broadly to do.

So completion and retention from a disaggregated with a disaggregated approach. We are already collecting a lot of that information. It’s already broadly comparable. Those are some of our leading indicators that our institutions are looking at. So your retention drop shows up years before your graduation rate does. Great. So we can check that box. Economic outcomes.

I think done really carefully, the measure to emphasize is actually the value-added earnings, the wage gain an institution generates relative to their cost of attendance, you know, not just raw graduate salaries. So, how do we start looking at some of those value-added metrics? And of course, there are institutions and systems that are starting to do that work, certainly given the federal rule changes around accountability.

I think we’re gonna start seeing that data emerge more readily. So that would be the second thing.

Wes Smith (09:43.51)
Right. I I love the focus on outcomes. accreditation has, you know, this this traditional approach, generally speaking, of taking a lot of time to review inputs. And getting to the outputs seems to be the most important thing we can do. You’ve named one that I think is just the highest level.

Output that you can measure, which is economic gain. You know, what what are the what are the impacts of you know this program from this institution on your bottom line as a consumer? So I think that we’ve we’ve hit on one of the most important outcomes. What other things could could you use technology to skip a lot of the inputs and get directly to the out outputs?

So we can focus on the most important things. Any other thoughts on that?

Alison Griffin (10:42.267)
So absolutely, I think one of I’ve been reading a lot of stories about this recently, but it are the financial health indicators and institutions that for years or in some cases a decade have been suffering through financial ups and downs. Of course, the economy impacts that, state funding, if you’re a public institution. But the surprising part to me is how many institutions now look back and say, wow, we

Could have caught that if we had only seen a full picture, if we could have only done some projections in a way that looked beyond three or five years. And so that financial health indicator, while not a learning outcome, it’s an outcome that students actually care about because it’s whether or not the institution that they’re attending is still going to exist.

One when they’re due to graduate, or two, when they want to come back 20 years as an alum. the other thing that I would suggest is that labor market alignment. So, you know, we have institutions that are collecting data. And in the case of public institutions, we have states and state systems, state agencies that are collecting information. How do we start filtering?

Some of that labor market information through an institutional mission. So I’m not even saying that we have to compare all the institutions in a single state. What if we started looking at them across Carnegie classification? Or we write? And so one, it’s a it’s an opportunity to also share information. I think that’s another place where accreditation could actually reform peer review.

Wes Smith (12:22.892)
Yeah. Interesting.

Alison Griffin (12:35.589)
I wouldn’t say we need to get rid of peer review. We need to leverage peer review in a wholly different way. So if you use technology to get after some of these indicators, get after your outcomes, you see a dip in performance. Wouldn’t you want to leverage the people in the network of higher education who are doing an excellent job at that indicator to come and be a collaborator with your

Wes Smith (13:03.17)
Yeah, absolutely.

Alison Griffin (13:04.177)
to improve on that outcome.

Wes Smith (13:06.604)
Right, right. That makes a lot of sense. some of our listeners out there, especially those who are very familiar with accreditation, I know what they’re saying right now. They’re saying, well, yeah, you can monitor some things, but you can’t monitor everything that accreditors do using technology. There are some parts of quality control that aren’t continuous. You know, there are new programs, there are, you know, seasonal enrollment, some things like that.

So what do you think the exception for continuous monitoring and input would be in the accreditation process, if there are any?

Alison Griffin (13:47.826)
So you’re asking of like the things that might be hard to standardize using another term. I actually I do believe it that one of the things that is hardest to standardize are the learning outcomes themselves, to be really honest. Like we don’t have a valid sort of comparable measure of what students actually learn across 4,000 wildly different institutions. And so pretending that we do.

Wes Smith (13:52.813)
Yes.

Alison Griffin (14:17.497)
Is almost like worse than admitting that we don’t. and so I I think that there is still room for improvement when it comes to those actual learning outcomes. And so I think recognizing that from the very beginning is really important. I would also say, you know, in in this environment of disagreeing better, you know, long-run sort of civic and just personal outcomes.

You know, the way in which people are finishing their program of study and contributing to their local community. I think that one, that’s not really something that accreditation is measuring now in a in a comprehensive way. And I do think that that’s something that is still hard to get after. So it’s almost like that return on investment that is fundamental to community building, I think is is really hard.

Wes Smith (15:16.226)
Yeah, that’s interesting. That’s that’s I I don’t see accreditation doing a lot of work in that area right now, but it you’re saying it it that’s a possibility.

Alison Griffin (15:16.266)
Alison Griffin (15:25.421)
Saying it’s I think it’s important, and I don’t know that it’s the role of accreditation. I think I’m saying that that is something that is still hard to standardize. I’m not sure that I would want accreditation to standardize that, but it would be interesting in this environment. again, where I think there is

opportunity for people when they disagree and they know how to disagree in a civil way than disagreeing uncivily and in an uncivil way. And I don’t know how we’re capturing that, but I think it would be important to to have a glimpse into that a little bit better than we do now.

Wes Smith (15:59.458)
Right. Yeah.

Wes Smith (16:08.3)
Yeah, it’s certainly a big issue in our society today. Okay, I’m gonna give you the last word on this. you you’ve done some thinking on it, we’ve talked through it. what would you say to our listeners is you know, your top takeaway and learning from from healthcare and financial services and other industries that we could bring and apply to higher education?

Alison Griffin (16:34.033)
So I would thank you for the last word. so I think the continua the idea of continuous monitoring should change behavior. So addressing problems before they become a crisis, not attempting to create a whole new compliance industry. And so my charge would be leverage technology where it can help make the process better.

For the learner and for the outcome, not adding another layer of compliance for the institution.

Wes Smith (17:09.358)
A fantastic on point for the president’s forum. You know, this idea of using technology to advance accreditation, make it more more relevant to the learner. That is right on message for the things that we’re working on in the forum. And we appreciate your insight on this and thanks for joining us today.

Alison Griffin (17:27.173)
Thanks for having me.

Wes Smith (17:30.454)
Okay.

Why Online Education Is Still a State-by-State Market

by Presidents Forum | Jul 8, 2026 | Policy

Why Online Education Is Still a State-by-State Market

Online education is often described as a national marketplace.

According to higher education analyst Phil Hill, the data tells a more nuanced story.

In his analysis of 2024 NC-SARA enrollment data, Hill found that online education is shaped less by a single national market than by a collection of state and regional markets, each with its own patterns, competitors, and policy decisions.

State markets shape student choice

While a handful of institutions recruit students nationwide, most colleges compete within distinct state and regional ecosystems.

For institutional leaders, understanding where students are coming from—and which institutions they are choosing instead—provides a clearer picture of the competitive landscape.

Hill argues that this type of analysis helps colleges move beyond broad assumptions and better understand the markets they actually serve.

Different states tell different stories

Hill groups states into three broad categories.

Some are “retention states,” where institutions offer enough online options that most residents remain in-state. Others, such as Texas and Florida, are large, highly competitive markets that attract institutions from across the country. Still others are “leakage states,” where many students leave the state to pursue online education elsewhere.

These patterns are often the result of long-term policy decisions, institutional investments, and workforce priorities rather than geography alone.

Why the data matters

For colleges, the data can help identify where opportunities exist, who the real competitors are, and which markets align with institutional strengths.

For policymakers, it provides insight into whether their state is meeting residents’ educational needs or losing students to institutions elsewhere.

Hill cautions against trying to replicate large national online providers overnight. Instead, he suggests institutions focus on programs that align with local workforce needs and build from their unique strengths.

The bottom line

Online education is not one national market.

Institutions that understand the dynamics of individual state markets—and design programs around student demand and regional workforce needs—will be better positioned to serve learners and compete effectively.

Transcript

Wes Smith (00:00.12)
Joining us today is Phil Hill from On Ed Tech. Phil, great to have you back.

Phil Hill (00:06.847)
Yep.

Phil Hill (00:18.345)
Yeah, it’s great to see you again. Always enjoy these conversations.

Wes Smith (00:22.146)
Yeah, these are interesting. This one’s a really interesting conversation to me. You’ve you’ve done some in-depth analysis on some NC SERA data. I kind of feel like a a a serious nerd right now saying that this is very interesting to me. And the the interesting thing is your in-depth analysis on NC SERA data. But forgive me for that. we there are there are there are dozens of dozens of us out there. So what what’s the key key takeaway to this data?

Phil Hill (00:46.571)
Hey guys.

Phil Hill (00:51.253)
Well, the key takeaway is first of all, this is a valuable resource. I mean, the fact that you have this state authorization reciprocity agreement and then the group collects this data and shares it, it’s a great community service. And as you look at it, you it makes it even more clear you don’t have an a single national online market. You have a bunch of state and regional markets.

And only a handful of players really span across all of the states. So the big takeaway is the fact that it’s valuable. And for any school that really wants to understand its position and where students are coming from and which states and who are you competing against, you can’t do better than this, than this data. And it’s important to think about your market. The second thing I would say, if you don’t mind me going on a little bit of a

Mini rant. California, for political reasons, never joined the reciprocity agreement. They did that. They wanted to maintain different consumer protection approaches. But one of the downsides of that is it’s a downside for the California institutions. California is not a member. Therefore, their institutions do not report data to NC SERA.

Wes Smith (01:48.81)
Yeah, please do. No, please do.

Phil Hill (02:15.561)
Yet their students, if they go to another school that’s out of state, that is reported. But that creates a blind spot. So one of the frustrating things is California institutions, public and private, would really benefit if that state would join. I don’t think they’re going to, but there’s it’s just ridiculous. And it does the opposite of helping consumer protection based on how they do it.

Wes Smith (03:32.877)
We have some we have some indicating data on students from California that go to other institutions that are out of state, but we don’t have the same richness of data for those California students who stay in state. Is that right?

Phil Hill (03:50.42)
Yeah, that’s correct. And so what I did is I didn’t want to have a complete blind spot for California institutions because they are so important. So in the case for those institutions, I substituted the iPads distance enrollment data. The problem is for out of state students taking online programs in California institutions, we don’t know which state they came from. All we can say is they’re out of state.

Wes Smith (04:16.392)
yeah. Yeah, okay.

Phil Hill (04:19.955)
So it’s a partial blind spot by the way that I combine the data.

Wes Smith (04:25.409)
You’ve done your best to overcome it, but there’s still some data that’s lacking there. Got it, got it. Okay, that makes sense. especially for our California listeners. If they’re if they want to listen and evaluate your analysis, they’ve gotta remember it’s a caveat that that’s the one thing you can’t tell.

Phil Hill (04:29.183)
That’s that’s correct. Yeah.

Phil Hill (04:39.517)
Yeah, and I th I’m the only one that I know of who’s sort of combined these two approaches so it’s not an either or, so hopefully it’s valuable for them.

Wes Smith (04:47.339)
Right, right. Okay. Well, so describe the the three categories of states that that you’ve put together. I I know that I know that you’ve done a lot of work on that, and you have strategic out-of-state targets, you’ve got retention states, and you’ve got leakage states, but explain to our audience what that means and how you’ve how how you’ve categorized them.

Phil Hill (05:08.879)
And I should probably describe it the way I’ve categorized it is sort of a public policy type of view, where that a lot of state policymakers and schools in states, you don’t like to see your students going to programs out of state, at least too much. Why aren’t we serving our own residents? You take that argument. So that’s sort of the basis of it.

And if you do that, you get one group who in Arizona, where I live, is a good example. Is you have multiple in-state institutions who offer online programs, you know, the Arizona State, the University of Phoenix, all of these, but you’re serving your own residents. They have plenty of online options within that state. You have big states, California, Florida, Texas in particular.

That are so big and concentrated, that’s the target states. So if you have an online program, you would love to get California students and Texas students because it’s just such a big source. That makes those states quite competitive or the competition for those students. And then a third is the other side of it saying leakage states.

Wes Smith (06:23.351)
Okay.

Phil Hill (06:28.415)
These are states that for public policy or various reasons, they just don’t have a whole lot of online programs available for their own residents. And therefore a large percentage go out of state. And the one that I had in the original post that you referred to was the state of Washington. So look at just how big Western governors is within the state of Washington.

Now there’s historical reasons for that. That was one of the earliest universities using Western governors, and it was almost like a flagship state presence for them. But so you have different types of states, and it very much points back to state policy and the schools and how competitive they are within there. So you have different markets, but you have different types of state policies as well.

Wes Smith (07:23.799)
Well, at the president’s forum, we just have s you know, a lot of institutions who who have, you know, this online capability. And they’re operating in multiple states. Some of them are, you know, we have California based that that have a lot of you know in state possibilities, but also national. you know, you mentioned WGU and SNHU out there with national presence. What this this

Phil Hill (07:33.472)
Yes.

Wes Smith (07:53.632)
analysis that you’ve done, what kind of of an impact do you think it should be having on these institutions? What what should presence form institutions be looking for in this data?

Phil Hill (08:07.871)
Well, hopefully I’ve made the data digestible and more easily available. So it’s not just individual business analysts within your institutions who get what’s happening. So you have a wider ability to see the data. And you start seeing things such as if we want to be competitive for this mention Washington, well then which schools are already serving Washington State students? Where are they already going? So who is our

Actual competition. Texas, highly competitive as well. So if you’re trying to serve Texas students as a target market, whether you’re in state or out of state, the biggest thing to say is how am I doing? Who are my I use the word competitors, but where are students already choosing to go? And therefore, try to better understand the decisions that students have.

Wes Smith (08:57.708)
Mm-hmm.

Phil Hill (09:04.117)
Who are they trying to think of when they for those who want an online program? What are my choices? And quickly realize it’s not going to be the same answer in Arkansas that it’s going to be in Michigan or Arizona or somewhere else. It’s very localized. So you need to be able to, if this is our market and here’s where we’re going, for these students who are, what are their choices really? That’s what I’m trying to make it easier to understand.

With this analysis.

Wes Smith (09:35.82)
Right. Well, okay. So now flip it to a state policymaker. So we clearly there’s a reason that institutions want to understand what’s going on in each state, especially the states that that they have a where they have a lot of students or they seek to have a lot of students. But for a policymaker from any given state, what does this information help them do?

Phil Hill (10:02.229)
Hopefully it gets out of get them past the initial shallow level of understanding. And maybe that doesn’t sound right, but what I hear so often at state policy level is we can’t keep sending our students to southern New Hampshire. We need to serve our own residents and some of our investments. Well, you need to go beyond that. You know, is it really southern New Hampshire? Is it Liberty Is it, you know.

University of Maryland Global Campus, how many students are doing this. So it’s basically for state policy. It’s again to go past the surface level understanding, but it’s true, it it should sort of inform do we need to invest more? That’s where I’ve heard people using this already. Hey, I love these charts. I want to take it to the legislature when we’re arguing for money.

And here’s why should we should be serving these students. We shouldn’t just be quote unquote sending them out of states. So it’s in that debate about how much do you invest and try to serve these residents where that type of where the data should be valuable.

Wes Smith (11:13.677)
So, Phil, I know you’ve been around this for a long time in this ed tech world. And so now I’ve got a question. it’s it’s I think sophisticated state policymakers would probably ask this question, and that is it takes a lot to create an in-state option that could compete with some of these programs who have been working on this for decades now. it is is that

Phil Hill (11:37.866)
Yes.

Wes Smith (11:40.894)
Does your would your data show that that is accurate? Number one. And number two, is it worth the investment for a state to have an option to compete with with other options that are have been at this for a really long time and have have kind of, you know, they’ve they smoothed out the process for students? Tell me what you think about that.

Phil Hill (12:06.011)
well, the data does go back to 2015. So you have a historical basis and you could look at any institution and say, when did they start? And yes, the big national brands, you’re going to find the answer was in the 2000s, most likely, or early 2010s, or with some of them back in the 1990s. But what would I do as a state policy maker? I would say the choice is not a binary, do we go for.

online students nationwide. You probably miss that bus just from a if you build it, they will come mentality. What you have the opportunity is to say, we know our local workforce. We know this specialization is what we really need for not only our students, but also for our local workforce. And we can serve our students better because we know them and and we’re right here. So specialization

And you know, thinking of what makes us unique, and part of that uniqueness is your local workforce and how to how to serve them. That’s where the opportunity is. So can you still get into the national market, if you will? Yes, you better be patient. Yes, it’s possible, but there’s a lot more opportunity to target specific programs and specific strengths of your college or university.

system, if you will.

Wes Smith (13:36.632)
So I I mean one of the big takeaways for me in in this conversation and based on, you know, your analysis is it it really is it’s not as clear cut of a national conversation as most people believe. It it is very much driven by regional markets or even state level markets.

And if you’re not playing at the state level and understanding the dynamics there, you’re probably missing a lot on this. Is that is that what you ended up with?

Phil Hill (14:10.571)
Yeah, I yes, that that is definitely the way to interpret it. And it is interesting looking at the data. Although you’ve self-identified, you’re a data nerd, so you naturally look at this, but there’s a pretty rich story about each of the individual states and where students are, and usually when you look at it.

You’re able to start saying, look at that school in this position. I remember that was a decision that was made in 2012. And so it starts to tie in historical decisions as well as you look at it. but yeah, as I said, it’s not a binary decision, it’s which students.

Wes Smith (14:52.951)
Phil, give us an example of that, of of something that you can look back to and see the history and that’s why this th these numbers look the way they do.

Phil Hill (15:02.761)
Well, I mentioned state of Washington. Early on, they didn’t it’s not just that Western governors set up an online presence in Washington. The state encouraged it. This is our approach to online education. And that really ramped up Western governors in that state. So so that’s one example. You have states such as Arkansas, where they, you know, combining their e versity and then they acquired Grantham University and

Wes Smith (15:22.111)
in Washington. Okay.

Phil Hill (15:32.572)
The state system is really trying to serve students more. That’s another decision that you start to see in the data. Now that’s more recent, but you definitely see that in the data as well. And I guess another one, the global campuses like UMass Global, they now the that was an example where they came out saying we can’t keep sending our students to southern New Hampshire. And I think initially they might have been.

too much of a it’s us versus them. But as the programs developed, I think they’re starting to see some changes in how the students are actually getting served. But it’s those types of decisions that you see. One other that I’ll mention, again, coming from Arizona, there’s an HR component to it. This is almost Silicon Valley for online education. So you have so many people who work in this area, that’s where you’ve had

A Arizona State, University of Phoenix, Grand Canyon University, Rio Salado, now University of Arizona Global Campus, which is now University of Arizona, but they’re all co located. And so this is a unique state because you have so many providers here right in the same area. And you get a unique thing.

Wes Smith (16:50.507)
That’s one thing that popped when I was looking at the data is that Arizona is, you know, just I mean, it’s the national leader with regard to online education. There’s it’s it’s hard to debate that any other state has an you know, anywhere near the type of influence that that Arizona does.

Phil Hill (17:06.983)
And the range of providers offering different programs coming from Arizona. Yeah, that is quite unique.

Wes Smith (17:14.463)
Right. You know, New Hampshire has one and Utah has one. And so you get you get the idea that Arizona has you know half a dozen that are come that have come together to provide this and it shows up in the data.

Phil Hill (17:18.227)
Yes.

Phil Hill (17:28.393)
Yeah. And and this goes, by the way, it goes back to my mini rant about California. California institutions, I bet they would love to be able to see this which state students are going where and how do we stack up. So that’s part of the reason there’s a lot of schools in California who are doing online. They would do a lot better if they had better visibility into this.

Wes Smith (17:51.125)
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Phil, this has been very interesting, super clear and useful data. We appreciate you taking the time to come and talk to us about it. We’ll we’ll of course link your article in the show notes. Where can our listeners find more information about this if they’re just, you know, looking for it?

Phil Hill (18:10.751)
Well, the on ed tech newsletter is a short answer, but I will point out that I’ve actually recently for premium subscribers to the on ed tech newsletter, on ed tech plus, I’ve actually created a enrollment an enrollment data tool that’s interactive that’s available. So the NC SERA data, the iPads distance enrollment data, you can do your own filtering and sorting and even pick.

Let me look at my school and my peers and see how they compare. So it’s on ed tech, but in particular, the pr there’s now a premium version that’s a data explorer that you could get a lot more out of this.

Wes Smith (18:52.481)
Fantastic. Fantastic. Okay. Well we’ll we’ll send our our listeners to on ed tech to to check this out. And Phil, we look forward to having you back on the show very shortly, I’m sure.

Phil Hill (19:04.841)
Yeah. Well great. I enjoyed this as always.

Wes Smith (19:07.714)
Thanks, Phil.

Why Earnings Alone Cannot Define Higher Education Accountability

by Presidents Forum | May 8, 2026 | Policy

Why Earnings Alone Cannot Define Higher Education Accountability

Why the accountability debate is more complicated than it looks

Higher education accountability is increasingly centered on earnings outcomes. The assumption is straightforward: students earn a credential, enter the workforce, and their salaries reflect institutional quality.

But Glenda Morgan argues the reality is far more complex.

Earnings are not produced by institutions alone. They are shaped by geography, labor markets, career pathways, industry structures, and personal choices. Treating salary as a direct institutional output ignores the broader systems that influence economic outcomes.

That distinction matters because accountability systems shape policy, funding, and which programs institutions choose to sustain.

Why earnings are not a clean institutional metric

A graduate’s salary reflects more than where they studied.

Regional differences play a major role. Urban and rural labor markets produce different wage outcomes, even for students with similar credentials. Cost of living also affects salary structures. The same graduate may earn dramatically different wages depending on location.

Career pathways matter too. Some professions have highly structured salary trajectories, while others develop more gradually over time.

Morgan’s argument is that earnings are a systems-level outcome, not a simple cause-and-effect institutional measure.

Why median earnings can distort accountability

Median earnings simplify complexity into a single number.

That can obscure important differences between programs and professions. High-variance programs may produce both very high and very low earners. Low-floor professions may provide critical public value despite lower salaries.

Morgan also argues that earnings snapshots fail to account for long-term trajectories. Some fields produce immediate returns, while others develop more slowly over the course of a career.

Research shows that liberal arts graduates, for example, may initially earn less than engineering graduates but eventually narrow or surpass those gaps over time.

What accountability systems should measure instead

Morgan argues for a more nuanced accountability framework.

Completion rates should play a larger role, particularly given the scale of students with some college but no credential. Time to degree also matters because delays increase cost and debt burdens.

Geography, labor markets, and career variation should be incorporated into outcome measures. Accountability systems should recognize that different programs produce different types of value and different earning trajectories.

Most importantly, institutions should be evaluated using multiple measures rather than a single earnings metric.

Why this matters for public policy

The design of accountability systems influences institutional behavior.

If metrics are too narrow, institutions may reduce investment in socially valuable professions with lower earnings outcomes. That could worsen shortages in fields like teaching, counseling, and social work.

The challenge for policymakers is to build systems that value outcomes without oversimplifying how education, labor markets, and society actually interact.

Read Glenda Morgan’s article “Earnings Data Are Driving Policy—and Misleading It” for more insights.

Transcript

Wes (00:26.786) Morgan, thank you for joining us today and welcome to the President’s Forum Podcast.

Glenda Morgan (00:47.604) Thanks and it’s a pleasure to be here.

Wes (00:50.488) Hey, your article argues that it isn’t just a measurement of earnings that’s the problem. It’s actually a causality problem. So it’s very detailed in laying that out for us, but earnings are being attributed to institutions when they’re actually produced by systems. Can you explain that to our listeners and tell us a little bit about why that distinction matters?

for how we design accountability in public policy for higher education.

Glenda Morgan (01:26.25) Sure, yeah, you know, in a lot of the accountability discourse that’s going on, earnings are often treated like a clean institutional output. know, somebody goes to college or university, they graduate, they have earnings and they’re seen as a, you you’ve got cause and effect. But actually what happens is much more complex than that, is that somebody goes to university, they take one of a variety of different kinds of programs.

and then they graduate. But what they actually earn is a product of all different kinds of things. It is a product of where they graduate, are they going to be living in urban or rural kind of setting, but also what kind of a job they’re going into. Some jobs have very determined pathways, others are much more flexible.

And so you’ve got these multiple causality things going on and so what people are actually earning after they graduate is the result of multiple factors all acting together. So it’s not just cause and effect. It’s a highly complex kind of a system. So holding one aspect of that responsible for the outcome is just a crazy sort of setup.

you know, because what’s actually happening is you’ve got all kinds of things interacting to produce a highly variable.

Glenda Morgan (03:21.268) It makes sense to everybody, you know, where you live is going to determine what your costs of living are. And it also sort of determines what you’re paid. I mean, it’s so ingrained in us to understand that, but somehow it hasn’t made its way into the metrics yet. You know, it’s not just urban and rural. It’s also, I mean, there’s a regional aspect that I didn’t write about because my colleague Phil has written about that. But where you live determines a lot of

your costs but it also determines where you’re paid. I used to work for Gardner and they actually you know it was a fully remote company but they actually linked your your salary to where you were living. There were high cost places and low cost places.

Wes (04:05.432) Yeah, that makes sense. Well, in this paper, you also mentioned you described three types of programs that have very different earning structures. And the three programs that you lay out are pipeline programs, high-variance programs, and low-floor programs. First, can you just describe what each those are, each program is for our listeners? And then…

I’d love to get into some of the details of measuring those and why one single median measurement doesn’t quite work.

Glenda Morgan (04:43.114) Sure, as we go on, just want to be sure to call out Ithaca, which my little article was based on their research. Ithaca SNR did some great research on South Carolina, but it’s broadly applicable. So much depends on the kind of the program and then the pathway out of that program for graduates out of there. And they identified three. So the first one are pipeline programs. This is where

You graduate from a program and your pathway is pretty determined. You’re something like nursing where, you know, there are a couple of different paths you can take, but it’s pretty set. And your salaries are in some ways determined by that pathway. And so they’re somewhat predictable. Another one is engineering, you know, how you progress and where you go. You you’ve got certifications and things like that that you do, but it’s certainly set.

And then you’ve got much more flexible kinds of programs. Sorry. High variance programs. this, you know, with a pipeline program, your career and what you’re going to do after you graduate are are largely determined by the program that you’ve done.

Wes (05:58.563) high variance programs.

Glenda Morgan (06:15.136) With high variance programs, it’s less a profession than a set of opportunities. So something like business and even computer science, I would argue, are high variance programs. So they’re not only in terms of what you’re actually going to do is going to vary a lot. You can go to lots of different kinds of places and it’s really up to you in terms of what you’re going to do and what you’re going to make of that, but also your salary, what you’re actually paid.

is going to determine is going to vary a lot. So you’re to have a huge variation in terms of earnings and pathways and occupations. It’s really not determined by the actual degree. It’s determined by what your interests are and how you progress in that. I, for example, I have a PhD in political science, you know, and

you could have become, I could have become a professor or I chose to become an industry analyst and it’s the ultimate high variance kind of programs. And then you’ve got low floor programs and these are sort of, they’ve got elements of both of those in that there’s a big variation in terms of what people do, but earnings are traditionally fairly low. So things like social work, counseling,

often the arts as well. So there’s a lot of variation in terms of what people do, but the floor tends to be pretty low as well in terms of what they make.

Wes (07:49.358) Could we lump in like teaching, mental health programs? Yeah, okay. So these are programs that we actually really do need.

Glenda Morgan (08:03.59) Absolutely, yes. You know, as a society, we rely on those kinds of things. But they have traditionally been paid less. In part, you know, there’s somebody who writes about librarians, for example, who talks about vocational awe, you know, where everybody really admires what they do, but they aren’t prepared to pay for it. And so you’ve got these low-floor kinds of things.

Wes (08:31.79) Okay, so when you take a median, when you just break that down and take one number out, how does that not yield the accountability that we’re actually looking for?

Glenda Morgan (08:47.914) So, you know, people often think about medians as being better than averages and they are, but, you know, they aren’t accounting for the variation across that. Particularly, I think the most egregious example is the high variance programs because a median is just telling you, you know, the middle of between the bottom and the end. And it’s not sort of really telling you in general how people are going to do there, but they’re certainly not capturing

the value of the input as well. There’s a logic breakdown there because what people are earning is determined by the system, not by the actual input of the beginning. It’s just the beginning point that we’re putting a lot of emphasis on and it’s not really a valid measure of anything.

Wes (09:44.674) Well, it just seems that those three different types of programs could create a little bit of a problem having, just evaluating that one number, particularly at the end of the day, when you’re looking at social value of some of these low floor careers and the credentials that are required for that.

Glenda Morgan (10:10.014) Yeah.

Wes (10:14.146) We have, you can’t get rid of all of these credentials because they don’t provide you the economic return that some other careers might because you need them for society. How do you deal with that?

Glenda Morgan (10:28.82) Yeah, you know, that’s a slightly different thing than I argued in the piece, but I think, you know, we have to think about what we need as a society. I remember, as it happens, I’m South African originally. And there was this sort of amazing moment where I sort of understood things in a much deeper kind of way. I was just before I came to the US, it was the end of apartheid.

And as it happened, I went to the University of Cape Town, one of the best universities in the continent of Africa. And I remember hearing a conversation and it was a time of rapid change. There was this guy who was on the Board of Governors, the Board of Regents of the University of Cape Town. He was a businessman, very successful. He said,

My job is to understand the role of the university. And so, for example, in the College of Medicine, we have to provide doctors to the whole of the society. And, you know, as a businessman, I understand inputs and I understand outputs. And if we only get one kind of input, we’re only going to have one kind of output.

So we need multiple kinds of inputs in order to provide doctors for all the different parts, know, for rural, for plastic surgeons, for orthopedic surgeons, for all these different kinds of things. And so I think in terms of our accountability, we need to think of the same sort of thing, inputs and outputs, you know, we need social workers, we need teachers, we need these kinds of things. So we need to make sure that we produce them because we’re going to hurt if we don’t.

Wes (12:23.086) Right, right. Well, you know, that’s clearly the the when you’re talking about we don’t just measure inputs. We do want to look to outcomes. You’re I mean, that’s speaking President’s forum language. We’ve been talking about that for a long, long time. But look, we can’t just we can’t measure accountability by, you know, the way that education is provided, whether that’s in person or online or.

Glenda Morgan (12:34.208) Yeah.

Wes (12:51.16) We can’t just look to the inputs, but inputs and outputs can both be important. Boiling it down to one specific earning number is more complicated than it seems, but let’s get to the, if we’re redesigning this system, tell us what you would build if it were a ground up build on accountability. Well, how would you do it?

Glenda Morgan (13:16.734) We’ve got 43 million Americans with some college no credential. And I think…

Wes (13:49.538) Ha

Glenda Morgan (14:14.472) you know, you can have the best earning credential in the business, but if you’re not actually getting the credential, it’s not going to help you. So I think, you know, including more metrics there, including completion, time to degree, those kinds of things, you know, is sort of is part of that. And really developing a more nuanced measure of that. So including regionality.

including urban versus rural, those kinds of things. So that’s sort of how I would start to design it more from the ground up. But I would put heavily an emphasis on if somebody actually is going to college that they’re coming out of it with a degree or a credential of some sort.

Wes (15:01.878) I love that thinking and that does get forgotten when it’s just one metric after, if you’re just looking at earnings, you’re not seeing all of the non-completers and the cost to the system that that is.

Glenda Morgan (15:15.455). Yeah, no, absolutely. And then they’re stuck with the debt often. And it’s just a sort of nightmare. So I want that to be part of the part of that sort of calculation, but also, you know, thinking also in terms of where people going and how they’re doing. The other thing we haven’t talked about is also time, which I wrote about in the in the article is that, you know, a snapshot in time is not going to give you a

a great measure because some of these professions, for example, the pipeline things are relatively high earning right out the gate, whereas other ones are slow brewing. So there are studies that show that right out the gate engineering graduates earn much more than say, science people. But in the long term, the liberal arts actually catch up and overtake.

I think just looking at snapshots in time is problematic. You need a longer term measure.

Wes (16:26.22) I’m glad you brought that up because that’s a huge variance and it’s really important to capture. It’s hard to capture. It’s very difficult. I don’t know if there’s a clean way that you can do that, but your point is some of these take a much longer time than five years out your credential. They brew over a career.

Glenda Morgan (16:44.768) Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, no, absolutely. And, you know, going back to the median issue, I’ve just been rereading Todd Rose’s The End of Average. And a lot of people have some issues with the book, but I sort of really like it. It’s that, you know, when you’ve got things that don’t correlate, you’ve got multiple measures that don’t correlate, just using an average really gives you a bad result. You know, he uses the example of

Wes (16:55.086) Mm-hmm.

Glenda Morgan (17:10.096) airplane cockpits. Originally they were designed for the average person but turns out nobody’s actually average. Because you’ve got these multiple measures, know, and so we need to sort of bring multiple measures into things instead of using that median of just the earnings.

Wes (17:28.398) Right, well this has been a very interesting conversation Morgan. We will direct our listeners to your piece on this so they can read all the details and we would love to continue this conversation as things move forward with accountability during this administration and future administrations. We really appreciate your thinking about this.

Glenda Morgan (17:37.269) Bye.

Glenda Morgan (17:51.134) my absolute pleasure and lovelies to speak with you. Okay, thanks.

Wes (17:54.616) Thanks, Morgan.

Accreditation, Innovation and Modernization (AIM) Week One Negotiation Update

by Presidents Forum | Apr 27, 2026 | Policy, Uncategorized

The Department of Education’s proposed accreditation reforms represent a fundamental shift in federal oversight, moving from a compliance-driven model toward one focused on student outcomes, institutional value, and market competition.

At a high level, the administration asserts that the proposal would reduce regulatory burden, expand accreditor competition, and strengthen federal guardrails for legal compliance and consumer protection, while emphasizing program-level outcomes and return on investment.

Week One Negotiation Update

The first week of negotiated rulemaking underscored both the scope and complexity of the proposed changes.

Discussions were anchored in a 151 page draft regulatory text released by the Department earlier this month. By the end of the week, negotiators had worked through approximately two-thirds of the draft (97 pages), leaving substantial ground still to cover in the second week of negotiations scheduled for May 18 – 22

While the Department introduced some revisions in response to committee feedback, those changes were described as primarily structural rather than substantive, suggesting that little progress has been made on consensus. Key areas, including outcomes-based accountability, legal compliance expectations, and accreditor flexibility, continue to generate significant discussion and, in some cases, concern among negotiators.

Department Goals with the NPRM

Affordability and Efficiency:
Expectations that institutions demonstrate cost-effectiveness and support credit mobility and lower-cost delivery models. Accreditors review the institution’s cost-benefit analysis of support services and facility operations/expansions.
Transparency and Consumer Protection:
Enhanced disclosure requirements and stronger accountability for institutional integrity and Title IV fraud procedures.
Focus on Outcomes and Value:
Increased emphasis on program-level outcomes, signaling a stronger federal focus on return on investment.
Less Process, More Flexibility:
Streamlined accreditation requirements and fewer procedural constraints, with greater institutional flexibility to select or change accreditors.
More Competition in Accreditation:
Expanded pathways for new accreditors and reduced barriers to switching, creating a more competitive and less geographically defined accreditation landscape.
Heightened Legal and Compliance Expectations:
Integration of federal legal and constitutional compliance into accreditation standards, including nondiscrimination and First Amendment considerations.

Next Steps:

Second week of Negotations scheduled for May 18 – 22

Resources:

Grad PLUS: What the Latest Change Means for Graduate Students

by Presidents Forum | Apr 24, 2026 | Policy, Video

Grad PLUS: What the Latest Change Means for Graduate Students

What changed with Grad PLUS loans

The Department of Education recently updated its guidance on how Grad PLUS loans are treated under new lifetime borrowing limits.

Previously, institutions were told that Grad PLUS loans would not count toward the $257,500 lifetime cap. That guidance has now changed. For students no longer eligible under legacy provisions, prior Grad PLUS borrowing will now count toward that cap.

This shift introduces immediate implications for how graduate education is financed.

Who is most affected

The impact will be concentrated among students in higher-cost graduate programs.

This includes students in medical, dental, counseling, and doctoral programs. Part-time doctoral students may face particular challenges, as longer timelines can increase cumulative borrowing.

Students who previously used Grad PLUS loans and are returning to school are also at risk. They may reach the cap before completing their program.

What institutions need to do now

Institutions will need to adjust quickly.

Financial aid teams should revisit awarding and packaging strategies, especially for students enrolling in upcoming terms. Advising will also need to shift. Students must understand how prior borrowing affects their remaining eligibility.

Clear communication will be critical. Institutions should prepare to re-advise students and update financial plans in real time as guidance evolves.

What to watch next

The timeline is tight.

Final regulations are expected at least 30 days before the effective date of July 1, 2026. That leaves a narrow window for institutions to prepare and for students to adjust their plans.

There is also ongoing uncertainty. Recent guidance has already shifted once, and additional changes remain possible.

Transcript

Wes (07:33.942) Amy, welcome to the show and let’s get right to it. The Department of Education just reversed course. Graduate Plus loans will now count toward the new lifetime borrowing limit under the one big, beautiful bill. What does that actually mean for students that are trying to finance their graduate education? Maybe we should start with, give our listeners background on what happened and then let’s answer that question.

Amy Glynn (07:56.885) Yeah, so when we’re talking about those new lifetime borrowing caps, the department had previously told schools that graduate plus loans would not count towards the $257,500 lifetime cap established under OB-3. In a webinar last week, this guidance was shifted and schools have been told that once a student is no longer eligible for the legacy provisions, previous borrowed grad plus loans will count against that lifetime cap.

And this is a really significant change for institutions that are serving those non-traditional students who are trying to fund their education. They are at severe risk of losing access to all Title IV aid for graduate programs because we know those funding sources are limited to the student loan portfolio.

Wes (08:43.118) Interesting. Okay, so give us the students who are most affected by this.

Amy Glynn (08:47.796) Yeah, students at greatest risk of having to stop out because of this change are going to be those in some of our more costly programs. If you think about things that are in the medical field, dental, our counseling programs, doctoral students, all doctoral students, but especially ones who are enrolled part time. Obviously, it’s our students who previously borrowed Graphic Plus looking to return to school.

And those are individuals who are going to face potential challenges by hitting that lifetime cap. Because the cap never resets. Even if a student has repaid or paid down their student debt, the cap is established and once you hit it, you lose access to those funding programs.

Wes (09:32.342) Interesting, interesting. Okay, so we know that students have to be aware of this now. And that also, I mean, you speak from an administration perspective. You’ve been there on the ground working in financial aid. Tell us what institutions need to know about the change.

Amy Glynn (09:36.448) Thank

Amy Glynn (09:49.044) Yeah, it’s one thing to understand the change. They probably need to shift their advising and their packaging, their financial aid offers that have been established, especially for students that are in these affected populations who are taking courses this summer, but especially students who are starting in the fall in a more traditional sense.

And so they need to understand the provisions. They need to establish a communication protocol to advise or re-advise students. And they need to be prepared to be incredibly nimble because this guidance could change again. You we thought we had a pretty clear understanding based on good faith negotiations that these loans were not going to count against a student’s cap. And this reversal

has significantly changed things and created a level of uncertainty in the knowledge that we did have around negotiations that are on an incredibly aggressive and tight timeframe already.

Wes (10:54.242) So speaking of the timeframe, let’s conclude with some details on the timeframe. What does it look like moving forward?

Amy Glynn (11:01.374) Yeah, so final regulations are supposed to be published a minimum of 30 days before the effective date. Effective date is July 1 of 26. So the time frame is pretty fast and pretty furious and is coming at us real quick.

Wes (11:18.624) Amy, thanks for your time. It was very clear and very useful.

Amy Glynn (11:22.443) Thanks Wes.

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