Finding Signals in the Noise

📕 Cover of my next book revealed; college leaders try to figure out how to navigate through the chaos; anxiety and college admissions; and college prices are actually dropping? These are excerpts from my newsletter, Next. To get the full version in the future, sign up here.

🚨 I'm thrilled to share the cover of my forthcoming book, Dream School: Finding The College That's Right For You, which hits bookshelves from Simon & Schuster on September 9:

👉 You can pre-order the book now.

Pre-orders help build momentum—and you’ll get exclusive benefits for doing so:

• A downloadable guide available for a limited time starting later this month—that allows you to put the advice in Dream School to work immediately

• Access to two exclusive webcasts featuring college admissions leaders where you can ask me anything

After pre-ordering from any bookseller, simply complete the form on my website with your order information to receive the e-guide (later in April) and webinar details (including recordings).

It’s that simple. Now that you saw the cover, I’ll be sharing more from inside the book in future newsletters.

EVENTS

I’ll also give you a sneak peek into the book during two mini 30-minute “office hours” in April to help you with the college search:

1️⃣ Speaking With Teens About College, where I’ll be joined by best-selling author and teen psychologist Lisa Damour, PhD

⏰ Wednesday, April 9 at 7 p.m. ET/ 4 p.m. PT

👉 Register here 

2️⃣ How to Find Your Dream School, where college counselor and admissions writer Allison Slater Tate will turn the tables and interview me about some of the big takeaways from the book.

⏰ Wednesday, April 23 at 10 p.m. ET/ 7 p.m. PT

👉 Register here 

THE LEAD

The manuscript of Dream School was shipped off to my editor at Simon & Schuster on Election Day last November. Little did I know at the time how significant the results of that day would turn out to be for higher ed—and just in a matter of weeks into the new administration.

A ton of ink has been spilled since 2016 on the “diploma divide” in American politics. (I highly recommend Ezra Klein’s recent podcast that touches on this topic; it’s worth watching on YouTube to see the data). Higher ed remained largely unscathed during the first Trump administration—the big exception being the tax on large endowments. College leaders I talked with last fall after Donald Trump was re-elected thought they could follow the same playbook they used from 2016 to 2020 and survive.

Clearly, they miscalculated.

Ever since January 20, colleges and universities have had a target on their backs:

• Cuts in overhead rates for NIH grants

• Slashing of the staff of the Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics (to a level not seen since 1870)

• Revoking the visas of international students and scholars who take part in campus protests

• A broad interpretation of the Supreme Court’s decision on affirmative action in admissions

• Threats of funding cuts to Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania if they didn’t agree with a list of demands.

There’s a lot of noise right now between higher ed and Washington, and it will take months—and probably a lot longer—for the dust to settle to really understand what the long-term impact will be on what seems to be daily executive orders focused on this one sector.

In the meantime, higher ed seems in many ways like Democrats in Congress: unsure of what to do in this new era.

Do they resist? That’s the tactic Wesleyan University’s president Michael Roth is clearly taking. The same with former Columbia University provost Jonathan Cole, who recently wrote in the New York Times that universities are “in a fight for survival.”

Most college leaders, however, are heads down hoping that their silence will help them escape at least the wrath of Trump’s executive pen.

Yet others are trying to figure out how to navigate through the chaos—to perhaps find a third way through the current state of things. According to various sources I’ve heard from in recent days, a group of university leaders led by the presidents of Vanderbilt University and Washington University in St. Louis gathered in Dallas last week with prominent conservatives to specifically discuss institutional neutrality and the state of higher ed in general. They were hosted by Texas billionaire Harlan Crow. 

The bottom line: As I've written, higher ed is at the end of a conservation cycle. We’re moving into a new phase that will no longer look like higher ed of the 1960s or 1990s. The question is which institutions are trying to organize to maintain the status quo and which college leaders are looking up and out and seeing the whole cycle.

1. The Reshaping of Campus Life?

What remains unclear is whether those seeking a third way share common goals. Like all insurgent coalitions, their priorities differ based on their position in the academic hierarchy.

Elite institutions are protecting their status at all costs, which explains Columbia's capitulation to the administration's demands.

In a recent Atlantic piece (subscription required), Ian Bogost, a Washington University professor and contributing writer, argues that Trump's policies will have far-reaching consequences because they fundamentally "threaten something far more tangible" to prospective students and parents:

The entire undergraduate experience at residential four-year schools—the brochure-ready college life that you may once have experienced yourself, and to which your children may aspire—is itself at risk of ruination.

Bogost contends that "fancy private schools and giant public universities" face the greatest risk, particularly in research. The innovations emerging from our top institutions since World War II have largely resulted from federal funding and international scholars drawn to American universities.

That ecosystem is now threatened, along with the innovations we take for granted. As Arizona State University’s president Michael Crow recently pointed out when he pulled out his iPhone during an appearance in Houston—it’s thousands of discoveries from research universities that led to that device in our pocket.

Unlike Bogost, I'm less concerned about undergraduate education at these institutions. While colleges do operate as an "amalgamation" of services and activities with departments cross-subsidizing each other, research cuts won't necessarily devastate the undergraduate experience. For elite universities, undergraduate education already functions as a side business, often an afterthought for star faculty.

Maybe this is the right time for the key message of Dream School: we need to expand our vision beyond the Top 25 schools.

Will teenagers stop applying to elite institutions? Never. And I don't discourage it in my new book, but instead offer a framework for discovering what truly matters in college and where to find it. This approach, I hope, will attract students to a wider range of institutions focused on learning, skill-building, and mentorship.

2. Thinking Beyond College

While most readers of my new book are likely seeking post-high school college pathways, that won't be the case for roughly 40% of American high school graduates this year.

What options do they have?

I recently read Kathleen deLaski's book, Who Needs College Anymore: Imagining a Future Where Degrees Won't Matter. I first met deLaski about twelve years ago when she served on George Mason University's board.

A former journalist, deLaski founded the Education Design Lab, which has partnered with dozens of institutions to redesign the college experience and credentials. Despite the title, this book from Harvard Education Press isn’t another anti-college manifesto. 

I connected with deLaski recently to discuss her work:

Q. The percentage of students entering college directly from high school has dropped from 70% to about 60% over the past decade. What's happening?

A. The "college for all" movement is losing momentum—not from policy decisions but from consumers themselves. Some fear debt in an uncertain job market. Others hear that new graduates lack the skills employers want, making college seem risky. A third group is simply impatient in our "just-in-time" learning era, finding shortcuts around traditional degrees through YouTube, apprenticeships, industry certifications in high school, or accelerated community college programs.

Q. Critics note that anti-college messages often come from college graduates with social and financial capital. You attended Duke and Harvard and had a successful career—how do you address this criticism?

A. With 62% of Americans lacking four-year degrees, the traditional model clearly isn't working for most people as a path to prosperity. This contributes to political resentment. Why not offer this majority additional pathways—funded and respected like college—such as apprenticeships and stackable certificates that help workers remain adaptable?

The book doesn't say "don't go to college." It answers "WHO needs college anymore?" Based on research and 150 interviews, I identify which groups still benefit from traditional college and which might consider alternatives. I have one child who attended college via community college and another who didn't go at all. 

Q. Your book emphasizes the need for a highly trained technical workforce—traditionally served by 2- and 4-year colleges. Why are they falling short? 

A. They're struggling because consumer and employer needs are evolving faster than college offerings. Today's learners want job readiness, and employers want applicants with both durable skills (soft skills) showing growth potential and technical skills providing immediate value.

Some innovative colleges are incorporating job experience into degrees. Another approach involves creating agile credentials that match innovation's pace. This explains the rise of micro-credentials embedded within courses.

Q. AI threatens entry-level positions that colleges have traditionally filled. How might we prepare young people who essentially need to jump from high school to mid-career roles?

A. This is concerning. I recommend reimagining the path from high school to college to work—creating a stepladder approach weaving education and employment together. This allows students to gain professional experience and hands-on learning starting in high school.

The Education Design Lab works with 100 community colleges piloting stepladder approaches that certify technical and durable skills for specific roles. These "micro-pathways" can build toward degrees while providing experience and earning potential along the way—an effective response to AI job displacement.

3. Lowering Admissions Anxiety

As another admissions cycle concludes for the high school Class of 2025, anxiety levels about rejections, waitlists, college selection, majors, and finances seem unprecedented.

The sources of stress are multifaceted, according to a panel I joined at SXSWedu this month:

• It’s the technology. While we usually complain that it’s too easy to apply to college these days (i.e. the Common App), technology cuts both ways, said Carolyn Blair, a counselor at Clayton High School in Missouri. Blair had a senior who applied to 47 colleges, which she said is “absolutely ridiculous,” but it also meant keeping tracking of multiple portals and passwords—which added to the teenager's anxiety.

• It’s the “information marketplace.” On the panel, I pointed out that starting in the late 1990s, two trends—government-mandated transparency from colleges and easily accessible information—merged, feeding our anxiety about who gets in and providing families with a new source of decision-making power. Those numbers were like a new currency for families, traded through Facebook groups, Reddit threads, and sites such as College Confidential.

• It’s the parents. They’re worried their kids won’t lead the life they have. “You have parents almost wanting to know more about the college admissions process before they even enroll at the school—and we’re talking about lower school kids,” said Michael Gary, head of the Friends Select School in Pennsylvania.

By the numbers: The University of Pennsylvania has applicants from 17,000 different high schools, said E. Whitney Soule, Penn's dean of admissions who moderated our discussion. The university receives over 70,000 applications and admits roughly 3,500 students to yield a class of approximately 2,400.

• Students "assume we must raise standards to reach our target numbers," Soule explained. "Their perception of requirements has become extreme, affecting how they organize their time and activities."

• For example, students hear that one applicant was accepted with seven AP courses while another with six was rejected, so they believe they need eight or more to be competitive.

The key insight: “College admissions shouldn’t be the first time your child hears no, and for so many students, that is the case, and that is why it’s so riddled with anxiety,” Blair said.

• Blair recalled helping a student recently with her essay and when they pulled up the Google doc, the counselor saw her mom in the document editing away.

• “Parents need to hold their kids accountable, but they also need to hold themselves accountable to stay in their lane,” Blair said.

The bottom line: Students are sacrificing their authentic interests to become what they think admissions officers want—and in the process heightening their anxiety level. In our discussion, we kept returning to the idea of reclaiming high school so that students follow their genuine curiosity rather than chasing prestige. Because in the end, teenagers might jump through all these hoops they think an admissions officer they never met wants in their application—and still not get in.

SUPPLEMENTS

💰 Demystifying University Finances. How colleges make and spend money remains mysterious even to those who've spent their careers in higher ed. That's why in the latest installment of the Higher Ed 101 series on Future U. we took a deep dive into college budgeting with Rick Staisloff, a former college CFO and founder of rpk GROUP. Key takeaways:

1. College budget categories are too broad. Most institutions lack clarity on revenue sources and expenditures.

2. The lack of transparency leads to lack of accountability. While colleges might set enrollment goals, their leaders often don't know what financial targets they should be hitting.

3. It's business intelligence, stupid. Part of this is cultural—campuses resist discussing ROI of individual programs. Part is technological—colleges have underinvested in ERP systems, leaving them flying blind in financial forecasting. This becomes increasingly problematic as we face an enrollment cliff and federal funding uncertainty.

🎧 Full episode.  📺 Highlights and full episodes.

🧐  Yes, College Prices Are Actually Falling. An analysis by Phillip Levine at the The Brookings Institution reveals that inflation-adjusted college prices have decreased over the past 5-10 years "for virtually all students" at public and private institutions. "Only high-income students at private institutions with very large endowments pay more now than they did a decade ago," he writes. "No other group of students at any other type of institution faces an increased cost. Most of them now pay less." (Brookings Institution)

☎️ Hello, Small Biz Administration? President Trump's plan to transfer student loan administration to the Small Business Administration faces skepticism within his party. Politico reports that "Education Department officials skeptical of Trump's SBA plan met the week after his announcement to discuss if the Treasury Department should manage the massive portfolio instead." Some conservatives worry about "SBA's lack of experience with colleges and universities and the time crunch its staff will face learning the complex student loan system." (Politico)

Until next time, Cheers — Jeff  

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