Tuesday, September 23, 2025 - We’re bringing back a favorite format to go behind the headlines with top beat reporters covering colleges. Our latest roundtable focuses on how the Trump administration’s many executive orders, research grant cancellations, and crackdowns on international students are changing the higher ed landscape in the U.S. and globally. Jeff and Michael are joined by reporters from The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, and The Chronicle of Higher Education to hear their insights and analysis. This episode made with support from Ascendium Education Group.
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We’re bringing back a favorite format to go behind the headlines with top beat reporters covering colleges. Our latest roundtable focuses on how the Trump administration’s many executive orders, research grant cancellations, and crackdowns on international students are changing the higher ed landscape in the U.S. and globally. Jeff and Michael are joined by reporters from The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, and The Chronicle of Higher Education to hear their insights and analysis. This episode made with support from Ascendium Education Group.
0:00 - Introducing the Reporters in the Roundtable
4:10 - How the Trump Administration Picks Which Colleges to Target?
8:36 - A Shift from Ivies to SEC Schools
11:01 - How the Campus Mood Is Different at Mizzou Than at Harvard
13:05 - What’s New With International Students on Campus
14:55 - Will International Education Decline Globally?
17:17 - The Impact of International Student Decline on Colleges’ Bottom Lines
19:07 - How Much Has International Enrollment Declined?
20:55 - Will International Students Fear Returning Home for the Summer?
22:24 - Sponsor Break
22:36 - Lessons from the Santa Ono Bid to Lead University of Florida
26:50 - Divide Between Red State and Blue State Universities
29:25 - Will Trump Changes to Higher Ed Stick?
35:38 - Predicting How the Supreme Court Will Rule on Harvard Case
37:13 - Lightning Round
"Universities in Red States and Heartland May Be Winners as Ivy League Contends with Trump Onslaught,"
by Hilary Burns in The Boston Globe
“Trump Administration’s Cuts to Harvard Funding Are Unconstitutional, Judge Rules,”
by Doug Belkin in The Wall Street Journal
"Even as Classes Begin, Some Foreign Students Are Still in Visa Limbo,”
by Karin Fischer in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Michael Horn
So, Jeff, as we said on our welcome back episode, the summer was hardly a break for higher ed this year. And so we wanted to go behind the headlines, so to speak, on a bunch of stories, which means we decided we'd bring back a popular segment, on Future U and go to the reporters from the Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, and Chronicle of Higher Education who wrote many of the pieces that have been driving those headlines.
Jeff Selingo
That's right, Michael. And, you know, we're bringing back this favorite episode format of ours on Future U so we can explore — this time particularly — the impact of the Trump administration's actions on higher education and how it might or might not shift the landscape of higher education, both in the U.S. and globally. And that's ahead on this episode of Future U.
Sponsor
This episode of Future U is sponsored by Ascendium, a mission-driven nonprofit committed to improving learning and training systems to better serve learners from low-income backgrounds. For more information, visit ascendiumphilanthropy.org. Subscribe to Future U wherever you get your podcasts. And if you enjoy the show, share it with your friends so others can discover the conversations we're having about higher education.
Jeff Selingo
I'm Jeff Selingo.
Michael Horn
And I'm Michael Horn.
Alright, Michael. There’s a lot to get into today with the reporters that we're welcoming to the show. I'm just glad they made time for us today given the pace of news in higher ed over the last nine months.
A little bit behind the scenes for our Future U listeners. We typically record on Fridays, and this administration has been known for dropping news on Fridays, particularly Friday afternoons when we record. So, Michael, we should probably get going really fast so that there's no news being dropped right now and so we could get out of here quickly.
Alright. One of the things I always love about these episodes, Jeff, is that the reporters, typically, they're the ones that are asking all the questions, and they're not really answering the questions. But when they join us, that's what they get to do. And we get to hear a lot of stories behind the stories. So I think this is going to be really fun and interesting for folks.
And we have three reporters with us today who we've gotten to know over the years.
First up is Hillary Burns. She's a Boston Globe reporter covering higher education who is interested in how colleges and universities in New England are adapting to a topic we cover a lot on this show, demographic changes, and closely following also how the culture wars are playing out on elite campuses. Before joining the Boston Globe in 2022, she authored a national newsletter focused on the business of colleges and universities for The Business Journals.
Also here is Doug Belkin, who covers higher education and national news out of the Chicago Bureau at the Wall Street Journal. And Jeff, I think Doug's been doing that for years at this point. I remember talking to him about the initial predictions that me and Clay [Christensen] had made about colleges closing over a decade ago. So he brings a lot of experience to this conversation.
Jeff Selingo
Yeah, Michael. And we also have Karen Fischer with us today who is The Chronicle of Higher Education's international reporter, where she covers American higher ed's engagement in the world, including international students and study abroad, comparative education, and increasingly the impact of geopolitics on education worldwide. She also created and writes the Latitudes newsletter. It's a great newsletter if you wanna know anything that's happening in international higher ed. And also examines the cultural and economic and political divides that shape American higher education, not only within The U.S. Borders, but then beyond as well. So Hillary, Doug, Karen, welcome to Future U.
Guests
Thanks. Great to be here. Thank you.
Jeff Selingo
So let's start with Doug because Doug, this summer for higher ed felt like one that we haven't seen before. It was probably a crazy time on your beat, I would imagine. There were lots of stories about antisemitism and of settlements and other negotiations between the Trump administration, Columbia, Brown, Harvard, Cornell, UCLA, UVA, George Mason. I kind of sound like the bottom of the ticker on ESPN there. So what's your read on how this plays out over the next bit time? How is the kind of administration picking in your mind, you know, which universities it goes after, which ones it exempts from this, and ultimately, the numbers and the parameters of the deals?
Doug Belkin
So I think they're getting a lot of information from folks on campuses, and they're looking into that, seeing where they think it's hottest. They have a lot of information coming in from the U.S. House committee. They've done a lot of interviews there. My guess is that as they make clear the fact that they are gonna have a heavy hand on this, most schools are gonna fall in line as many have so that there's less aggression needed from the White House.
Jeff Selingo
So how though have some schools like Dartmouth, Yale, Stanford, how have they — so far at least — seemed to stay off the radar? What been going on there?
Doug Belkin
Yeah. That’s an interesting question. So at Dartmouth, the president there has kind of tried to sidestep a lot of this stuff. She didn't sign a letter of protest that a lot of other presidents did. There's probably some degree of luck happening, and there may be a lot of stuff waiting in the wings that I wouldn't make any predictions about who's next with regard to any of their particularly elite schools.
Jeff Selingo
So, Hillary, I know you also have some sense about why Harvard was a target and how places like Vanderbilt in particular have won favor with the Trump administration. What would you add to why there seems to be a little bit of randomness to all this? Like, why some schools and not others?
Hilary Burns
Yeah. It's a good question, and one we've spent a lot of time thinking about and talking about. I think to Doug's point, the colleges that appeared before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce are schools that the Republicans have issues with. So we're seeing I remember being at the first congressional hearing with with the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and U Penn, and a lot of what was talked about in that very long hearing are the grievances that we're now seeing them act on today, like more than just antisemitism, but also transgender athletes and DEI and, you know, classes they think are too woke in the curriculum. So I keep going back to those hearings for why. And also they're going after schools that have powerful brands and people know so as to make an impact. That much is very clear. And Harvard, when they did sue and stand up to the demand letter back in the spring, that's ... We spoke with an attorney who worked with Trump previously who said, well, you know, if we know anything about him, it's if you hit him, he'll hit back harder. So, that's our take on why Harvard.
Michael Horn
Hillary, I want to stay on this topic for a moment with you because you've obviously been close to this reporting on things happening both at Harvard and MIT specifically. But you've also been looking at a more global view of how higher education might emerge from this moment, not just in the negotiations, but also vis-a-vis funding, the endowment tax, changes in student loan policy, and more. You had a very interesting article titled "Universities in Red States and Heartland May Be Winners as Ivy League Contends with Trump Onslaught." And in that, you quoted something that president Trump said in his commencement speech at the University of Alabama, and and I'll read it, where he said, it is clear to see the next chapter of the American story will not be written by the Harvard Crimson. He told a cheering crowd of thousands. It will be written by you, the Crimson Tide. So is there a chance that the real focus here is perhaps less on attacking higher ed writ large and more maybe on recentering it or changing its ideological and geographical diversity?
Hilary Burns
Yeah. It's a really good question and one that I spend a lot of time thinking about, and I kind of go back and forth depending on what news breaks on any given day. But I think that what is clear is that in the short term, there are universities in the heartland and in the South that do see opportunity. They see, you know, as these Ivy League schools that have historically gotten a bigger piece of the funding pie are, dealing with these political crises, they have an opportunity to stand up and say, well, we're not in trouble with you all. And actually, our student body is more aligned with the Trump view of what he and what the administration would like from higher education — fewer foreign students, they have largely more white student bodies compared to the Ivy League. We ran all the stats to compare the Ivy League versus the SEC schools, and it was really eye opening to see the numbers.
So a lot of these schools are able to go to the administration and say, look, we have big research enterprises too. We're often overlooked and overshadowed. Look at the great work we're doing. And maybe now is a good time to, some of them think, now is a good time to try to get more funding from the administration, which really caught my eye because I just couldn't believe that a school in the current environment, would be asking or lobbying — trying to get millions or hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government, but that is what Mizzou is doing, trying to build a new nuclear reactor on its campus. And that's such a massive project to launch as these schools on the East Coast are dealing with major cuts that feel so existential.
So when I went out there and was on the ground with them, that storyline of these universities here in New England feeling as though they're under attack or in the Northeast, I should say, feeling as though they're under attack, that was very far off. People were like, 'Oh, yeah. That is going on, isn't it?' But that was not top of mind. They were just saying, 'Look, we're doing the work. We're keeping our heads down. And we deserve funding for this project.'
Michael Horn
It's super interesting. And you told me earlier in the summer that it feels very different at Mizzou from what the Harvard campus feels like every day that I'm experiencing. Can you share a little bit about that?
Hilary Burns
Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, just the sense of school spirit is one thing. I mean, these schools have bigger sports programs. I mean, I know some Harvard hockey team might be mad at me for saying that. But I think these schools have so much more school spirit around sports, and Greek life is really big there. And there's just a lot of people wearing the Mizzou shirts walking around campus.
I mean, I was there in the summer, but there were still, like, the people I did see walking around were in their gear.
And everyone was so tuned into the school's priorities. Like, they all knew even the journalism students I was talking to knew all about the nuclear reactor they were bringing online, which was so interesting to me because I feel like at Harvard, one department doesn't know — they don't know what's going on at another school. It's all so big and sprawling and siloed.
So they all were really rallying around. They said that they all hold the view that this nuclear reactor, getting it off the ground is good for the science department, good for the research enterprise, but it's also good for our school, to lift the whole profile of the university. And it felt like everyone was really swimming in the same direction there.
Michael Horn
Super interesting.
Karen, I want to bring you into this, and the international picture because this plays obviously a big role in all these moving parts as well.
I'll call them that there have been a lot of loud, big actions against international students early on. It's constantly evolving. I wrote an op-ed for the Boston Globe saying that it does feel like there's this strand playing out where for several decades leading American universities were boasting that they're actually global universities. And then along comes this American first ethos, globalization is out, and all of a sudden some of the universities that Hillary was talking about, they actually have fewer international students.
And so maybe there's a little bit of a loyalty test going on here. Like, you're incorporated in America. You should follow American laws and have America's interests first and foremost when they perhaps arguably diverge from global interests. What's going on here with the international picture?
Karin Fischer
I mean, certainly I would say that we're seeing international education and particularly international students be politicized in a way that they haven't really before been. I mean, yes, there was the travel ban during the first Trump administration. Yes, occasionally I would go to states where there would be debates, you know, of 'Are those foreign students taking the spots of American kids?' But international students, as you say, were something that the colleges put out press releases touting. And so it's very different today.
In one way it's because when you think about internationalization, it is the intersection of those two things that you just identified, higher education and the sort of antagonism between the Trump administration and colleges, but it's also these issues of globalization. Now you say is it good for the United States? I mean, one of the things that people in international education to colleges will point out is college education is one of the United States' biggest exports. And so if you really want to think about what's good for the United States, $44 billion a year in international students is probably — it's not nothing.
Jeff Selingo
Yeah. So, Karen, it was interesting because, you know, everybody keeps saying, well, they're just gonna go somewhere else. Right? These international students will go to other countries. But I was in Canada recently, and talking to higher ed officials up there, and it seems like there's a anti-immigration strand, and we know this is happening in Europe too, and many other countries. So what's going to happen with globalization of higher education in general? Is the U.S.' loss necessarily other countries' gains, or are we just going to see a kind of a realignment in some ways of education being more homegrown and staying kind of within borders?
Karin Fischer
I do think we might see some realignment.
Ironically, in January everybody I was talking to was actually thinking that other countries' losses — Canada's, Australia's, Britain's — was going to be The United States' gain. And so it's this last six or seven months of both policies and rhetoric really targeting international students has changed those perceptions.
You know, I think we might see some of those students go elsewhere, other places, if not staying at home, other places regionally are making plays for those students. So for example, you see Hong Kong enrolling record numbers of students, particularly from mainland China, who maybe would have come once to the United States or to Britain or Canada. And likewise, I mean, you see in India, the Indian universities are trying — or the Indian government rather is trying — to bring in more foreign universities to deal with the immense capacity problem they have. And so there's the possibility that, yes, you could see some of those students turning away from the United States.
I guess the other thing I would say is we could see more of a different definition of what being an international student is. And so does it mean getting a passport and getting a visa and getting on a plane, or does it mean doing some sort of online or regionally-based education that maybe you're not ever setting foot on a campus in the United States, but you're still getting an American degree?
Jeff Selingo
So I want to hear all three of your perspectives on this because you've all done reporting on this in some way. And I think this is a big question. Like, what's going to be the impact?
So I'm doing a lot of work now writing in admissions, and I have a lot of, you know, everybody sees this as a zero-sum game, so I have a lot of domestic parents saying, 'Yay. This will open up more spots for American students.' Right? Then I have all these people asking me about, 'Oh, what about, all these international students bringing all this money to these American universities? Won't that mean budget cuts in many of these universities?'
So I kinda would just like to go around the horn. Doug, we'll start with you. And then, Hillary, I know you've done some reporting in New England specifically. And then, Karen, maybe we'll come back out and look at this globally again. But what is the bottom-line impact to universities especially as we hit the demographic cliff here among domestic students? They're gonna have to find students somewhere. So Doug, what have you seen on this?
Doug Belkin
For the universities, I think it's clearly just bad news, right? They're taking away a big chunk of the market. Domestically and politically, it depends where you're sitting at the table, right? If you're part of MAGA, that's one thing. If you're in a blue state, it looks very different. But for universities, I don't see this as being anything but a very stiff headwind for as long as it lasts.
Jeff Selingo
So Hillary, you are in one of those blue states. So how are people feeling up in Massachusetts?
Hilary Burns
People are definitely worried. I think it was a relief that international students were able to come back for the most part for this fall semester. We haven't heard about major disruptions so far. So I think people are celebrating that as a win.
But people are very worried about brain drain. They're especially worried about losing scholars and postdocs and graduate students who are the future leaders of higher education and the future academics going elsewhere, going somewhere where it's less political, where the funding is more stable, where there's maybe more funding. So that's the biggest concern I hear.
And I also hear worries about, you know, many international graduate programs rely so heavily on international students that they won't be able to fill the seats with domestic students. So that's another worry I hear. So, yeah, definitely bad news for the schools up here.
Jeff Selingo
So, Karen, when will we really know if it is bad news? I mean, one of the things that I kinda find confusing about this is at one moment, you say, oh, it's gonna be terrible, and then they reopen visa, interviews, and then they say, oh, it's gonna take so long, and people can't get appointments. And now we're hearing that people aren't you know, and I've been talking to a couple college officials where they haven't seen the declines they expected. So could you make sense of the numbers, and when will we really know?
Karin Fischer
I mean, there's a massive amount of uncertainty. When I talk to colleges, you know, usually, we're into September. People would be able to stay with more certainty about what their freshman classes are shaping up to be, and you still have international students sitting for visa appointments right now in places like India. So I think there's going to be possibly later in the fall. And then a lot of these students have actually deferred 'till the spring. They've said, okay. Look. We can't get a visa appointment. We still very much wanna come. And so I think come January, we might see a surge in students.
And that's gonna be interesting at some of these places that took a lot of domestic students off the wait list. What are they gonna do when they get all these international students too? But then the other question, I think, and the bigger looming question is what's gonna happen for 2026? Because these international students who are coming for this fall, by the time Trump was inaugurated and by the time we started to have some of these sort of headwinds in policy and rhetoric, you know, they already were well underway of applying. But what's it going to mean for students who are just now starting the process?
Jeff Selingo
Oh, Karen, let me just jump in there because then I know we have to go to break. But, also, is it going to be ... everybody has a story about an Uber driver. I had an Uber driver in Pittsburgh this year, an accounting major at Carnegie Mellon. I think he was an accounting major, business major at Carnegie Mellon, and he was from Turkey. And he told me he stayed this summer to be an Uber driver because he didn't want to go home and have the expectation of not being able to come back.
Is that going to be also an issue next summer, or is there gonna be a big push to try to keep as many of these students as you can in the States? Or what do you think might happen on that side?
Karin Fischer
That's very reasonable to think. I mean, unless we get more certainty in the system, I think one thing will happen is, you know, this year, you know, I'm sure that that student you were talking to had decided kind of at the last minute and changed his plans. And so I think that you're gonna have both students and possibly colleges as well kind of thinking ahead and trying to think what can we do? What do we need to have in terms of supports to keep those students on campus, to keep them employed, and to, you know, provide some sort of cultural and social support as well?
Michael Horn
Uncertainty continues to reign supreme, it seems. Let's take a quick break. And when we come back, we're gonna dive into a couple more topics about how the heck presidents should lead in this moment of uncertainty and look at our crystal balls for how much of the current noise will mean lasting impact on higher education. We'll be right back on Future U.
Sponsor
This episode of Future U is sponsored by Ascendium, a mission-driven nonprofit committed to improving learning and training systems to better serve learners from low-income backgrounds. Ascendium envisions a world where low-income learners succeed in post-secondary education and workforce training as paths to upward mobility. Ascendium's grantees are removing systemic barriers and helping to build evidence about what works so learners can achieve their career goals. For more information, visit ascendiumphilanthropy.org.
Jeff Selingo
So welcome back to Future U. We're back with Doug Belkin from The Wall Street Journal, Hillary Burns from The Boston Globe, Karen Fisher from The Chronicle of Higher Education.
So I wanna change topics for a minute because we had this story play out over the summer that I'm not quite sure if any of you wrote about, but it provides a bigger window into higher education leadership, which really kind of fascinates me and Michael, and we were texting about this in the moment when it happened. You know, the story was this: Santo Ono, he was Michigan's president. He was in line for the Florida job. He was the sole finalist. Says he had been nervous about the DEI stuff all along and then had this kind of awakening of sorts. But then, essentially, he gets dinged for it because a lot of the things that The New York Times wrote about Michigan's DEI work was under his presidency. And that's after, of course, four Ivy League presidents have resigned since October 7, 2023, the UVA president, the Northwestern president most recently as we're recording this.
I'm just wondering, you know, given all the upheaval in these top jobs, what does this really say about the job of being a president of a university right now? Can someone who has been president of a public university, for example, in a blue state really go to the University of Florida in a red state or vice versa? You know, is there a litmus test? Is there gonna be a litmus test on both sides? What does it really mean for leading a university right now? Doug, let me let me start with you, and then, Hillary, let me have you weigh in on that too.
Doug Belkin
Yeah. In the last few years, these jobs went from kind of political to hyperpolitical. And everybody's hiding behind or adopting — probably wisely — institutional neutrality for that reason. I think it's kind of the only path forward. I don't see this changing, you know, when the Democrats take back power in Washington, there's a pretty good chance that they'll push in the same direction.
We saw a trend a number of years ago of guys like Mitch Daniels and other politicians coming into the presidency. I think those folks have a better background, more keen understanding of how to handle this. And some of these presidents who've come up through the academy are a little bit like deer in the headlights. I was surprised to see Ono that thing play out so ruthlessly in Florida.
Jeff Selingo
Right. Hillary, what are you hearing up in Massachusetts there? Where, again, these were kind of top jobs in the Ivy League, and it'll be kind of curious to see, for example, what eventually happens at Harvard and and Columbia.
Hilary Burns
Yes. The turnover has been amazing. I mean, we all know that already the tenure of college presidents continues to shrink.
I was at a dinner last night with about a dozen college presidents in DC, presidents of small liberal arts colleges. And this topic came up, and they all were saying, 'Yeah, this job has become very political.' Like, you know, who wants this job now? How many people are saying, 'No, this is not the career path for me." When they see all that's going on. You just have to be so careful. It's also something that we've been talking about here how, because as the tenures do get shorter and shorter, do you have real leadership at these universities navigating these really challenging questions.
Where is the leadership?
Maybe has a lack of leadership contributed to some of the vulnerabilities at these schools that have led to this moment. So I think it's a really tough question. And now we're seeing interim presidents in a lot of these positions battling with the federal government. So that's also interesting.
Jeff Selingo
Yeah. And, Karen, I wanna bring you in here because in addition to international reporting over your career at The Chronicle, you've also done a lot on the economy and the political economy between states and the value of higher education. I mean, it seems like we've been moving towards this I'm starting to wonder if we're gonna have a blue state, state higher education system, increasingly. And you know, it's one of those things that I think has always been a little bit above politics. But as we know now, you know, the number one predictor of how you're gonna vote is the college degree. And so do you feel that in your reporting domestically that there's starting to be this divide between the red state and blue state universities?
Karin Fischer
I think potentially — particularly in the public institutions — there could become that.
When you talk about funding, when you ... I mean, I think we all tend to focus not unreasonably on what's happening with the Trump administration and what's happening in Washington D.C. But there's been all kinds of actions at the state levels that have really changed the way that the college classrooms work. You know? Places like Florida where they've, you know, are auditing professors for their political beliefs. And, you know, they're watching the amount of money that they get from China. And, you know, they're trying to legislate all of that. And so I do think there's some question about what it is gonna mean for the funding for colleges?
And what is it gonna mean? I mean, faculty, you know, you can debate how mobile they really are. But, you know, just as you asked ‘Is a red state presidency going to be appealing anymore?’ you might ask, ‘Will people be coming and looking for jobs, would they rather work here in California where I am, or would they rather work in Florida where it's maybe a little bit more difficult to be a professor?’
Jeff Selingo
Yeah. It's interesting.
Before I turn it back over to Michael, this summer, I've had some dinners with presidents and provosts and one in Providence and then one in Austin, Texas. And it was really interesting, especially the one in Austin. Like, there's a lot of money in Texas going to higher ed still. And it's kind of like, we'll take the money, and I guess we have to take the interference that we don't like.
Meanwhile up in the Northeast, it's like, we don't have any money, but maybe we don't get the interference. Right? So it's kind of like, what would you rather have?
And I think most of the folks in Texas said, you know, we'll deal with the interference because the money's kinda nice. I don't know. I'll be kind of curious to see where this all goes. Michael.
Michael Horn
It's going to be interesting to see it play it out.
Let me just ask a couple more questions where we'll go around all of you, before we go to some less weighty, a little bit more fun, lighthearted questions at the very end in our lightning round.
But, again, this is a question for all of you. With this push by the Trump administration, it seems like there's an attempt, obviously, to change the culture of higher ed in some pretty big — and they would prefer lasting — ways. And, of course, higher ed, you know, is built to change very slowly, if at all.
Where do you think things land in five, ten years from now? Like, if you looked at your crystal ball, what changes might stick? Where might some of these things get reversed in future administrations? How malleable, I guess, is what we're seeing, and where will it be more fixed?
Doug, why don't you go first and then Hillary and Karen? I’d love to hear from everyone on this.
Doug Belkin
This move that's been going on for a couple of years to try to elevate debate, get folks talking across the aisle. That's so important and so good. It's such a positive thing that's come out of this tough time. I think that will stick because it serves everybody. There's no losers in that scenario and there are when institutions become hyper-political and they have.
So that's my guess and my hope. The faculty obviously have a tremendous sticking power, right? They have tenure, there's a lot of them there. It's not clear to me how much of this stuff will be around, and what Trump's legacy will be in higher education if they are on the other side of it. And I think he's really mindful of that too. I think the White House is clearly thinking about themselves as having a limited amount of time to make as much impact as they can before the time of the sun closes and they hand the baton off. So, hopefully open inquiry and debate between students, between faculty becomes the norm again.
Michael Horn
Hillary, I'd love your take on that. The question of what sticks and what doesn't.
Hilary Burns
Yeah. It's a good question. I think we're really curious to see — it's kind of a ‘will they or won't they’ right now with Harvard, and we're waiting to see if they do settle what those terms will be. And obviously, there's a lot of concern here within higher education circles and beyond that about academic freedom and independence. And they worry that, well, if, you know, any kind of receivership or anything like that would be a sign that things are that would be hard to undo and very damaging. So that's a big concern in terms of what will stay.
I know I've heard from college presidents who say, you know, as we change the names of different offices around campus or centers, they're still very committed to helping students get through college and be successful, like, no matter what the name of the center is. And, you know, they had these types of services, like, well before it was called DEI. And so those ideas and that mission of helping students succeed no matter where they're from or where they come from or who they are, that's not going anywhere.
But, of course, it's easier to say that and do that in New England compared, you know, rather than Florida or Texas as we've been discussing. So the view up here is that, you know, the optimistic view I hear is that not too much will change.
You know, maybe some good could come of it. There's more institutional neutrality, more discourse, civil discourse. Schools are working really hard on that to Doug's point of helping students and professors have more debate and civil debate and discourse. And I've heard about progress on that front. So those are the things I'm watching.
Michael Horn
Well, I'll say as a faculty member, more discourse and conversation would be a good thing from my perspective as well, if that's where we end up. Karen, what's your prediction on these questions?
Karin Fischer
I mean, the thing I would look at is not especially sexy and doesn't get as much attention as, say, these debates over DEI or debate on campus. But how much structural change is the administration going to make?
You know, how much change are they gonna make, say, to the student loan system? How much change are they gonna make to the student visa system? How much change are they gonna make to the way that you know, and this is really unsexy, but appropriations are done so that, you know, research and other things that they perhaps dislike. You know, a future administration also might be able to interfere more with or intervene with more.
So I think it's really going to be how much of it is talk and rhetoric and how much of it is this sort of kind of deep institutional change that, you know, the federal government, because it does control, you know, spending on research and the student loan system can make. And so that's not exciting perhaps to the average person, but it's, I think, the thing I would watch most.
Michael Horn
Karen, just stay with that for one moment because one of the things that Jeff and I have talked a lot about in the show is how much of this you know, the the actions that you just talked about really are lasting if they're done through the executive as opposed to the legislature getting involved and congress, say, doing its job. The One Big Beautiful Bill took a step on some of those things you just mentioned. What's your feeling on that in terms of does it need to get sort of ratified, if you will, by congress, or is the executive action, big and lasting enough?
Karin Fischer
It may be. You know, it's not unique to the Trump administration. The Biden administration, the Obama administration also made a lot of changes through executive actions. Yes. They are perhaps easier to undo potentially when a new administration comes in. But, you know, if the change get made, it can, you know, it can just sort then create the environment for things to be operating in. I mean, that's what I would also just point out that I think even among Democrats. I mean, we've been ... We've in this conversation, we've making this blue/red distinction, but I think we have to remember that there's critiques of higher ed today that we weren't hearing, you know, five or ten years ago from Democrats about the value of college or does it cost too much?
And so I also think we have to remember that just, you know, four years from now, no matter who's in the White House, there could, you know, be executive branch folks and legislators who are trying to make changes to American higher ed.
Michael Horn
Super interesting.
Doug, let me finish up with just one question for you because you just wrote a story about the court case that was favorable for Harvard against the Trump administration. Always the danger that I'm asking you this, and the podcast will come out a little bit, and there'll be, like, five developments in between. But I'm curious what you think will happen, as this goes to the Supreme Court and how they might look at this case, and if you have any predictions from the conversations you've had about how they might look at this case between Harvard and Trump.
Doug Belkin
I think the Supreme Court has left the door open to kind of a coin flip. It's really a close call there. I don't know what's gonna happen. I wouldn't predict black or red on the roulette table. I don't know. I don't know that it matters. We use the line in the story that this is like fighting a hydra. What happens in court is fine and interesting and important, but potentially irrelevant if he keeps throwing more barbs at Harvard and he has a lot of capacity to do that. They're aware of that, but it's certainly nice to notch a win if you're Harvard at federal court in your home court.
Jeff Selingo
Yeah. It's interesting how so many people came out. I got so many press releases the other night when that decision came out. It's amazing how people on higher ed see this as a huge victory, but it'll be interesting to see where this goes. |So we're gonna actually move on to less, weighty issues here. We wanna change gears a little bit to finish off this episode with a new segment that we're bringing to Future U this year, a new lightning round about fun things in higher ed since we all cover it and wanna have a little fun now. So we shared our own answers to these questions in our first episode, but we wanna get to know all of you a little bit more and find out about your own experiences with higher ed when you were in college and your thoughts on kind of college culture. So I have three very quick questions here. One was, 'What was the worst grade you got in college?' And I don't wanna out you here. So if you don't wanna say what the grade was, maybe what class it was. So, Doug, we'll start with you.
Doug Belkin
I don't think I made myself look exceptional in any of my science courses. Chemistry was a challenge.
Jeff Selingo
Which is probably why you became a reporter. Right?
Doug Belkin
That plays more to my strength. Yeah.
Jeff Selingo
Okay. How about you, Hillary?
Hilary Burns
Let's see. I think despite four semesters of Italian, I am not going to be speaking Italian to anyone anytime soon.
Jeff Selingo
Okay. Karin?
Karin Fischer
I think I gotta be in microeconomics, which is weird because I then took many other economics classes and did just fine, but I don't know why. That just didn't click for me.
Jeff Selingo
Okay. Well, let's go from — maybe it wasn't necessarily the worst class if it was a grade — but, 'What was your favorite college class and why?' Whether it was a specific class or specific subject? Let's start with you, Karin, on that one.
Karin Fischer
I loved botany, just because it was … I was not a botany major. I was a political philosophy major. And it was just such a great, you know, break to go and tromp around campus and, you know, look at, you know, leaves and things.
Jeff Selingo
Great. Hillary.
Hilary Burns
I think my favorite class was a rhetorical conspiracy theory class, which has come in handy, I will tell you. Maybe more than any other class I’ve taken.
Jeff Selingo
And Doug?
Doug Belkin
Well, it's probably won't come as a surprise since I'm working at The Wall Street Journal, but I did enjoy my economics classes a lot. It sort of explains the world in a way that made sense to me.
Jeff Selingo
Interesting. Well, and fine, let's end on this one. You're all language people. You all care about language in your writing. So what's the one higher ed buzzword that you never ever wanna hear again? Hillary, I'll start with you on this one.
Hilary Burns
Oh my gosh. I'm married to a consultant, so I hear terrible buzzwords all the time. Higher ed? Maybe just ROI.
Jeff Selingo
Okay. ROI. Karen, what's the one higher ed buzzword you would like to just put away forever? Or phrase?
Karin Fischer
I could probably take a break from resilience for a little while.
Jeff Selingo
I like that one. And Doug?
Doug Belkin
I've probably had my fill of microaggression that just never seems to end.
Jeff Selingo
Okay. Great. Well, we're gonna have a little fun with that segment this year. We have a series of questions, just to end on a little bit of a light note. And, Michael, I will turn it back to you.
Michael Horn
Yeah. Well, just on behalf of us and, and our listeners on Future U, big thank yous, to Hillary Burns at the Boston Globe, Doug Belkin of The Wall Street Journal, and Karin Fisher at The Chronicle of Higher Education.
And thank you as always to you, our listeners. We look forward to talking to you next time on Future U.
