How brutal will higher ed’s hunger games become? Freshman enrollment dropped this fall even before the enrollment cliff arrives. Hopes that the sector can beat demography seem dim as the college-for-all movement falters. With different parts of higher ed fighting over a shrinking pie, a few college leaders no longer bother to hide the fact that they’re competing with neighboring institutions. This hits home within institutions, too, as departments jockey for resources. Which corners of the sector band together, and which ones decide it’s everyone for themselves? — Rick Seltzer, senior writer
What changes will colleges make in their recruiting strategies to attract students, including those from well-off white families, whose enrollment numbers are falling the fastest? — Katherine Mangan, senior writer
Will new taxes add to colleges’ financial stress? To partially offset revenue lost to tax cuts, GOP lawmakers during Trump’s first term instituted an excise tax on the investment earnings of some of America’s best-known private, nonprofit colleges. Since 2017, calls from lawmakers to expand the so-called endowment tax have only grown louder. Elsewhere, analysts in the municipal-bond space have expressed concern that Congress could amend laws on the taxing of debt financing for America’s cities, states, and nonprofit organizations, including higher education. — Dan Bauman, staff reporter
How many more college mergers will we see? Higher-ed association officials who came through our office in 2024 told us they’re expecting more small institutions to try this route. Will they find partners? The Biden administration gave the feds more oversight over such deals, lengthening the process. Some struggling colleges don’t have that kind of time. But things could change under the Trump administration. — Sarah Brown, senior editor
Will college leaders and faculty members work harder to try to understand their local communities, including experiences and points of view that may be unfamiliar? Beyond trying to communicate the value of higher ed, what concrete efforts will they make to listen? — Jennifer Ruark, deputy managing editor
Can shared governance work in a time of impatience? At its best, higher ed’s tradition of faculty members, administrators, and governing boards collaborating on decisions can insulate colleges from partisan whims. At its worst, shared governance is a recipe for infighting, hard feelings, and gridlock that favors the status quo when times demand change. Higher ed may defend academic freedom in principle from calls for more direct political control over the sector, but in practice, institutions will still have to prove shared governance can respond to long-festering concerns that the sector is too expensive, too insular, and unable to adequately serve too many students. — Rick Seltzer, senior writer
Is a rigorous search for truth still important? Today’s splintered information environment heaps stress upon institutions charged with tending to the flame of knowledge. Everyone is entitled to their own reality, and they’re often hostile toward others’ realities, as demonstrated by the succession of the pandemic, war in the Middle East, and the 2024 election. This is a challenge to ivory towers built upon traditional expertise and agreed-upon facts. But might it also be an opportunity for institutions to reaffirm foundational principles that help the public reason, interrogate ideas, and sort the credible from the claptrap? — Rick Seltzer, senior writer
📬 We want to run your big questions for the year, too. Submit them to dailybriefing@chronicle.com. Include your name and title so we can publish them in a future newsletter.
