Daily Briefing

Good morning, and welcome to Thursday, October 24. Rick Seltzer wrote today’s Briefing. Julia Piper compiled Comings and Goings. Get in touch: dailybriefing@chronicle.com.

Free, fee, or both?

Mounting pressures, including competition from free-to-use educational resources, prompted publishers to ask colleges to bundle course-material charges with student tuition and fees.

Our Taylor Swaak asks if campuses can weave together two strategies for textbooks.

Open educational resources enjoyed a moment. The openly licensed, often free-to-use course materials known as OER drew support as a counter to high textbook prices. Backers also tout the fact they can be shared and modified, enabling instructors to add references to current events or tweak content to make it more relevant to students.

But publishers convinced many colleges to charge students for course-material bundles. “Inclusive access” and “equitable access” models lump the cost of textbooks into the tuition and fees students pay, often charging a flat rate by credit hour. Supporters argue this guarantees students will have the materials they need for class.

OER is left facing headwinds, at least according to indicators of faculty mindset and institutional behavior:

• Faculty members’ awareness of OER dropped by 8 percentage points in 2023-24, a recent survey from Bay View Analytics found, marking the first time in almost a decade that awareness didn’t increase from the year prior.
• Almost half of all degree-granting institutions adopted some version of inclusive access, the Association of American Publishers says.

Structural advantages favor publishers’ equitable-access model. Students pay course-material fees by default, though they can opt out. They can only access materials for a short time, removing sales competition from secondhand use.

OER faces more challenges. Open materials aren’t available for many classes, particularly upper-level and humanities courses. OER is often funded by one-time grants, meaning money isn’t available to incentivize faculty members to update materials. And even at many equitable-access colleges that offer OER classes, students who don’t proactively opt out end up paying publishers’ fees for materials that might otherwise be free.

Is a hybrid model possible? Some experts hope so, but it would require nuanced contracts and improved transparency for students. Here’s how colleges might do it:

• Play hardball with publishers: At least two colleges signed deals that didn’t charge students for credits in courses that use only OER. Faculty members who use OER might give institutions leverage to negotiate lower fees.
• Give students more information, fast: The University of Colorado at Colorado Springs’ learning-management system has a “personalized value sheet” detailing the materials students will need for their courses, the retail prices, and what they’d pay if they remain opted in to equitable-access plans.
• Use equitable-access revenue to subsidize OER: The University of California at Davis has transferred almost $300,000 since 2020 into efforts that include honoraria for instructors who revise, create, use, or share OER.

The bigger picture: The resource-intensive work of combining the best of OER and textbooks-as-a service would be a Herculean task for any one college, because the interests of administrators, publishers, faculty members, and students don’t align. Some colleges will land on clever one-off models, but federal policy stands a better chance of shaping larger market trends.

Quick hits

• More students in line for federal financial aid: Colleges moved to send aid to 3.1 percent more students as of early October than at the same point last year, with Pell Grant originations — the first step in the process of distributing aid — jumping by 10.4 percent. The U.S. Department of Education contrasted the new data with concerns that its botched rollout of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid depressed enrollment. But the agency’s framing may be stretching the data in several ways. A formula change made it easier to qualify for Pell Grants, the department says it’s received fewer FAFSA submissions, and aid originations fell for recent high-school seniors. (U.S. Department of Education)
• OPM guidance is officially dead: The Education Department said in a Monday court filing it will yank 2023 guidance that would have had the government closely scrutinizing companies selling recruitment and retention services, software, and educational content to colleges. 2U, an online-program-management giant, sued to stop the new rules, arguing the department skipped important vetting procedures and was effectively forcing the company to change its business. The department had already put the new guidance on hold in the face of blowback, then said this summer that it plans to go through a time-consuming rule-making process to tackle the issue. (U.S. District Court, The Chronicle, Inside Higher Ed)
• Consolidation in Alaska? The University of Alaska at Fairbanks says its Interior Alaska Campus, which works with villages, tribal governments, and employers to offer education in rural areas, used to be the sole higher-ed option in many parts of the state. But enrollment, which was already measured in the hundreds, is down by about a quarter since the start of the pandemic. Now the university wants to move the interior campus under its Community Technical College. (KTVF)
• Another Syracuse U. frat suspended: Administrators are investigating allegations of hazing at Psi Upsilon that “may have placed students at risk,” the university announced on Tuesday, about a week after the institution suspended its Phi Kappa Psi chapter in response to online videos that Chancellor Kent Syverud called “repugnant.” (Syracuse University, The Post-Standard)

Protest watch

A communist group called to expel “white nationalist and Zionist” students and employees from the University at Buffalo. The group, Communist Student League, is not officially recognized by the institution, which is part of the State University of New York system. The group nonetheless called for the university to use its student-conduct office to launch investigations leading to expulsions. It issued the call among 15 demands that also include boycotting Israel and expelling “all military, police, and border-patrol recruiters,” according to The Spectrum, the student newspaper.

The University of Minnesota-Twin Cities postponed a lecture by Anthony Fauci amid pro-Palestinian protests, The Minnesota Star-Tribune reported. On Monday night, at least 11 people were arrested after activists occupied an administrative building. Protests continued Tuesday afternoon, prompting the institution to restrict access to a dozen buildings. The university said it was postponing the Tuesday lecture by Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, because of “unexpected and complicated incidents” over the last day.

Brown University threatened to discipline students for sleeping in a temporary structure that the institution had greenlit. Jews for Ceasefire Now built a sukkah to celebrate the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, according to The Brown Daily Herald student newspaper. The students say they told the university they planned to sleep in the structure. Administrators say they didn’t communicate that intention, and that Brown is enforcing restrictions under the university’s green-space-use policy.

Just 11 percent of students said the Israel-Hamas war was a top issue in November’s election, according to a survey from Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab. Respondents were asked to rank their three top issues. The economy and cost of living led, cited by 52 percent of students. Next up was reproductive rights at 45 percent, followed by the future of democracy at 26 percent.

Comings and goings

• Erika Randall, associate dean for student success in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder, has been named interim dean and vice provost for undergraduate education.
• Joseph R. Marbach, president of Georgian Court University, in New Jersey, will retire next year after 10 years leading the university.
• Apryle M. Gladney, associate vice chancellor for human resources at Washington University in St. Louis, has been named interim vice chancellor and chief human resources officer.
• Leslie Pollard, president of Oakwood University, in Alabama, will step down to become assistant to the president of the North American Division of Seventh-Day Adventists.

To submit a new-hire announcement, email people@chronicle.com.

Footnote

Check it out: Indiana University at Bloomington has added a statue of John Mellencamp, as you can see in the photo above — taken not by Jackie Brown, but by another JB: James Brosher, a photographer at the institution.

Mellencamp, an R.O.C.K. legend famously born in the small town of Seymour, Indiana, lives in Bloomington now that he’s getting older, so much older. He previously promised to turn his life’s minutes into memories by donating archives to the Indiana flagship.

A wild night surely followed the statue’s Friday unveiling. At the event, the chief executive of the university’s foundation talked up Mellencamp’s “contributions as a songwriter, storyteller, painter, poet, and activist, especially for those who understand the struggles of family farming and the dignity it brings to rural life,” the Indianapolis Star reported. Mellencamp performed several hits, including “Rain on the Scarecrow” and “Jack & Diane.” We can only assume he chose to play guitar.

Should Mellencamp’s bronze statue ever come crumblin’ down, might I suggest replacing it with another tribute? Little pink houses.