Shifting Student and Employer Priorities Create Opportunities for Higher Education Interest and innovation in workforce-related programming and credentials continue to surge, emerging as one of the fastest growing markets in higher education. Two-thirds of colleges and universities are making significant investments in this area, with more than one-third also embedding professional certifications into their online…
Read MoreInstitutions 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 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 MoreNegotiated Rulemaking Kicks Off | Policy Matters (June 2021)
Major Updates Negotiated Rulemaking Kicks Off “Commenters at the public hearing addressed topics related to federal student aid, including Public Service Loan Forgiveness, widespread debt cancellation and the responsibility of for-profit institutions. The Department of Education began its negotiated rule-making process Monday (June 21) by holding the first of three days of public hearings, with…
The Benefits of Higher-Order Multiple-Choice Tests (Inside Higher Ed)
In an excellent column, Ray Schroeder, senior fellow for the Association of Leaders in Online and Professional Education, laments the tendency for many instructors to rely on text-specific test banks as source material for student assessment. Not only are these inquiries susceptible to cheating, he says, they assess lower-order, nonlocalized and therefore less relevant knowledge like…
UPCEA Announces New Leadership and Name for Chief Online Learning Officer Group
Council for Chief Online Learning Officers (C-COLO) is the body for senior leaders charged with driving online strategy at the unit or campus level WASHINGTON, D.C. (June 23, 2021) — UPCEA, the association for college and university leaders in professional, continuing, and online education, announced today that its body for chief online learning officers is…
Could a quantum leap someday aid ethical AI? (Pew Research Center)
As they considered the potential evolution of ethical AI design, the people responding to this canvassing were given the opportunity to speculate as to whether quantum computing (QC), which is still in its early days of development, might somehow be employed in the future in support of the development of ethical AI systems. […] Ray Schroeder, associate vice…
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 MoreInnovation attracts attention, and not all of it good. Protecting data, students, and credibility now means securing every AI experiment before it secures you. The Bright Side, and the Blind Spots, of AI in Higher Ed AI is higher ed’s new favorite partner and, like any power couple, it comes with complications. It’s rewriting…
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…
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