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 MoreRacial Justice and the Mission of Professional, Continuing, and Online Education
UPCEA and its members are deeply troubled by the recent senseless killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man in Minneapolis, and the lives taken before him. Many others have been affected in the wake of these tragedies. This, combined with the health care disparities exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, underscore the systemic racism that…
UPCEA Signs Letter to Hill on Broadband Access and Infrastructure
Twenty-nine (29) higher education associations and organizations, including UPCEA, joined EDUCAUSE on June 5, 2020, in sending a letter to Congress on significant broadband issues for higher education. The groups asked Congress to consider the needs of economically distressed college students in relation to efforts to bridge the digital divide during COVID-19 pandemic, specifically citing the Supporting Connectivity…
Policy Matters | Department of Education Extends Distance Education Approval to December (May 2020)
Department of Education Extends Distance Education Approval to December In an updated guidance letter, the Department of Education has extended flexibility, originally provided in early March, for broad approval of the creation of distance education programs beginning between March 5 and December 31, 2020 due to interruptions of study related to COVID-19. It has also extended…
UPCEA Partners with LX Pathways by iDesign
We’ve partnered to help you increase capacity around instructional design Do you need to increase your team’s capacity around instructional design? Would you like to add instructional design to your skillset? Great news! UPCEA has recently partnered with iDesign to offer even more online professional development through iDesign’s self-paced learning opportunities, LX Pathways. Our partnership…
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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