Institutions must begin preparing now for 2026 implementation. On July 4, 2025, Congress passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), a sweeping legislative package that reshapes federal student aid and accountability policy. Among many consequential provisions for higher education is the creation of Workforce Pell, which will extend Pell Grant eligibility to some short-term,…
Read MoreIntroduction Enrollment managers face a paradox: students demand personalized service, yet resources are shrinking. While AI is exciting, it is also an expensive endeavor for enrollment management divisions already stretched by staffing and resource challenges. Traditional methods—manual file reviews, siloed systems, and lagging indicators—simply can’t keep up. The solution lies in determining how to leverage…
Read MoreAn artifact of the race to the top in Artificial Intelligence (AI) is that mistakes inevitably occur in refining the models that are under continuous development. One of those many mistakes apparently led to hallucinations in outputs. We all are witness to the incredibly frenetic race to develop AI tools that publicly kicked off on…
Read MoreUniversity budgets across the country are broken. Overall revenue and accumulated financial support appear to be declining at most universities for a wide variety of reasons. New funding policies, administrative reorganizations such as those at the Department of Education, lean fiscal times for states, diminished regard for higher learning, fewer requirements for degrees among employers…
Read MoreED Releases Proposed Gainful Employment, Certification Procedures, HEERF, and Second Chance Pell; Public Comments Open With Multiple Deadlines | Policy Matters (May 2023)
Major Updates Department of Education Releases Proposed Gainful Employment, Financial Responsibility, Administrative Capability, Certification Procedures, and Ability-to-Benefit Regulations – Public Comment Due June 20 The Department of Education has released the long-anticipated retooling of the Gainful Employment (GE) rule following work during the 2021-2022 Negotiated Rulemaking. Current law requires that certificate programs at all institutions…
The UPCEA Community: Focus on Credentials
Twenty years ago nearly every online leader was familiar with faculty concerns about quality and cannibalization. Those concerns proved ill-founded, of course. Indeed, the online learning revolution continues unabated, driven by a virtuous circle of learning innovation and entrepreneurial approaches to expanding access. This transformative potential is why online learning continues to be a major…
UPCEA Congratulates Senior Fellow Ray Schroeder on his Honorary Doctorate from the University of Illinois Springfield
Schroeder has been a leader in online learning since 1997 Ray Schroeder, UPCEA Senior Fellow and Professor Emeritus and former Associate Vice Chancellor for Online Learning at the University of Illinois Springfield, received an honorary doctorate of humane letters at the UIS commencement on May 13. Schroeder has been engaged in online learning since 1997…
How Education Leaders Think Generative AI Will Impact Classroom Learning (CB&A)
With the recent launch of ChatGPT, generative artificial intelligence entered the chat (pun intended) in a big way, and commentators immediately expressed concern about plagiarism and other forms of cheating in the classroom. Since those early days, the conversation about how these new generative AI tools will disrupt classroom teaching and learning has broadened. Bigger…
We are pleased to share the foreword by UPCEA CEO Bob Hansen from the newly released Chief Online Learning Officers’ Guidebook: A Framework for Strategy and Practice in Higher Education. The guidebook, now available from Routledge in paperback, hardback, and eBook formats, provides a comprehensive framework for today’s online learning leaders. Learn more and purchase…
Read MoreOver the last three years, UPCEA engaged in an innovative partnership with the University of Wisconsin–Madison to enable the latter’s Distance Teaching and Learning (DT&L) conference to continue under UPCEA’s leadership. The partnership’s goals included making this valuable event for the distance learning community more sustainable and accessible to online practitioners focused on teaching and…
Read MoreIs your institution ready to deliver, comply, and compete? This update is intended to highlight key portions of the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) that affect colleges and universities. The goal is not to offer opinion, but to bring clarity around the law’s implications—especially the arrival of Workforce Pell. The OBBB is a broad, multi-issue…
Read MoreProtecting students, data, and credentials starts at the top, because hacks don’t take holidays. Cybersecurity Is Now a Leadership Issue Universities aren’t just academic institutions anymore. They’re digital enterprises. Student data, research, and online platforms are valuable targets, and attackers know it. That’s why cybersecurity has moved out of the IT basement and into the…
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