Education

EDU News Curated by Kiosk: Maine’s higher ed crisis and other higher ed news

Maine, The Laboratory for the Future of Higher Education

From Kiosk: “Maine has long been known for its population’s resilience and adaptability, some might say intractability. In the face of demographic challenges – including an aging population and declining enrollment rates – that attitude is fostering innovation at an impressive pace and scale. From competency-based education to microcredential initiatives, Maine has become a true laboratory for the future of higher education, providing models that can inspire institutions nationwide and more globally.”
View the full article from Kiosk.

 

How Maine Became a Laboratory for the Future of Public Higher Ed

From The Chronicle: “Maine’s population of 1.3 million is the oldest in the nation, with a median age of 44.2; the national median is 37.7. It ranks 47th among states in fertility and immigrant population … Enrollment has already been faltering at most of the state’s four-year public universities for the past decade, and the number of high-school graduates in the state is projected to continue to fall, by about 14 percent through 2032. … But these same factors have also compelled the state system and its institutions to embark on a bold and, in some respects, inchoate strategy to adapt. As a result, Maine has become a de facto laboratory for the future of sustainable public higher education.”
View the full article from The Chronicle.

 

A ‘Transformational’ Investment in Maine Workforce Training

From Inside Higher Education: “The Maine Community College System is set to receive a $75.5 million influx over five years from a local foundation to invest in its short-term workforce training programs. The grant from the Harold Alfond Foundation, which supports efforts related to Maine education, community development and health care, is the largest grant in the system’s history, according to an announcement earlier this summer. With the new funding, the system aims to train at least 70,000 workers in the state in industries ranging from allied health fields to welding and logging.”
View the full article from Inside Higher Education.

 

The Program That Changed the University of Maine System’s Fate

From Inside Higher Education: “Undergraduate enrollment at the University of Maine system had been shrinking for decades when the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, compounding the decline. … But one actually doubled its head count from 2020 to 2024: the University of Maine at Presque Isle, a small campus with just under 2,000 students located in northern Aroostook County. At the core of that growth is an online, competency-based program called YourPace, which UMPI developed in 2017. The model is similar to comparable programs offered by institutions like Western Governors University and Purdue University Global: Students can progress through their classes as soon as they prove competency in the material, allowing them to take as many classes as they like during each eight-week session.”
View the full article from Inside Higher Education.

 

 

UMaine System reducing physical footprint in face of online learning and declining enrollment

From Maine Morning Star: “The University of Maine System is selling a midcoast educational center that has been devoid of degree-seeking students since 2020. With this sale, the system is continuing to reduce its physical footprint as students shift to online courses amid a system-wide enrollment decline. … A building previously used for classes that served a mix of undergraduate and non-traditional students who worked for employers in the area, such as Bank of America. However, due to those employers reducing their workforce, the university lost a large part of their non-traditional working student enrollment at the Belfast center, resulting in a steep decline in students from 16,000 in 2005 to 300 students in 2019, according to Samantha Warren, spokesperson for the system.”
View the full article from Maine Morning Star.

 

 

Aging states to college graduates: We’ll pay you to stay

From The Hechinger Report: “Now two states, Vermont and Maine, have started offering student loan repayment support to new college graduates with degrees in any field who agree to stay and work, with few strings attached. … Maine’s Student Loan Repayment Tax Credit was expanded and broadened last year in a bipartisan effort. It provides a state income tax credit of up to $2,500 a year to people with associate, bachelor’s or graduate degrees and student loan debt who live and work in Maine, with a lifetime cap of $25,000.“

View the full article from The Hechinger Report.

 

Microcredentials Unleashed: Pioneering the Next Frontier

From Evolllution: “The University of Maine System Micro-Credential Initiative created a unified framework that includes an applied learning opportunity, to help decrease employer confusion about the quality and rigor. … As we move forward, microcredentials presented as open badges will aid employers in quickly locating needed talent, while reducing their hiring and rehiring costs. Learner Employment Records (LER) tied to employer talent marketplaces will also aid both learners and employers. LERs are comprehensive digital records of learners’ skills, competencies, credentials and employment history that can show a more complete picture of their education and work experiences than a traditional transcript.’’
View the full article from Evolllution.

 

College student voting is way up

From Hechinger Report: “Americans ages 18 to 24 have historically voted in very low proportions — 15 to 20 percentage points below the rest of the population as recently as the presidential election years of 2008 and 2012… But rates of voting by young people have quietly been rising to unprecedented levels, despite their lifetimes of watching government gridlock and attempts in some states to make it harder for them to vote. More than half of Americans ages 18 to 24 turned out for the 2020 general election, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That proportion was up by more than 8 percentage points from 2016, and has been closing in on the voting rate for adults of all ages. Among college students, the proportion who voted was even higher.”
View the full article from Hechinger Report.

 

Squeezed From Both Sides: Why is neither party happy with higher education?

From The Chronicle: “Two-thirds of Americans think higher education is going in the wrong direction, including nearly half of Democrats, according to a recent Gallup survey. … It’s not just one thing about college, however, that pisses off Americans and the politicians seeking their votes. In fact, even when they employ common language — for example, calling for ‘accountability’ — the two political parties mean very different things. Democrats are talking largely about greater accountability for student and post-graduate outcomes. Meanwhile, Republicans are clamoring for more transparency about what is taught in college classrooms and a firmer hand with student protesters.”
View the full article from The Chronicle.

 

Colleges See Alarming Rates of Fake Applications. So They’re Turning to AI.

From The Chronicle: “Community colleges have been especially vulnerable to these attacks. Their mission to make education accessible to all students — through practices like open admissions, no application fees, and low-cost tuition… makes them an attractive target, said Mark Kantrowitz, a nationally recognized expert on student financial aid. Some of the better-known victims are California’s community colleges, which have collectively lost millions to such scammers since 2021. … The solution, for some, has been AI software that can be integrated into a college’s application-processing system — acting somewhat like a sieve. These tools can, among other things, cross-reference an applicant’s information with public records and commercial data.”
View the full article from The Chronicle.

 

The Microcredential Generation

From Inside Higher Education: “McDonough and Higgins are just a couple of the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have pinned their hopes on microcredentials as quicker pathways to in-demand careers than traditional degrees. … While these kinds of programs have long served adult learners looking to update their job skills or switch careers, research shows students fresh out of high school are flocking to them in greater and greater numbers. Learners ages 18 to 20 completed more certificates at higher ed institutions than any other age group during the 2022–23 academic year, according to an April 2024 report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Nearly 154,000 young learners earned certificates that year—an 11 percent increase over the previous year—among the 670,665 certificate earners across all ages.”
View the full article from Inside Higher Education.

 

Why Are Politicians Talking About Apprenticeships?

From Inside Higher Education: “During a presidential election cycle that’s involved little talk of higher ed, apprenticeships have claimed an unusual share of the spotlight. Vice President Kamala Harris recently posted on X that she plans to double the number of registered, or federally recognized, apprenticeships, if she is elected president. The Democratic nominee also told a crowd at a September rally in Pennsylvania that ‘our nation needs to recognize the value of other paths, additional paths, such as apprenticeships and technical programs.’”
View the full article from Inside Higher Education.

 

Free community college in Massachusetts expected to draw 45,000 students within a year

From CBS News: “Tens of thousands of Massachusetts residents are expected to take advantage of a new policy expanding eligibility for free community college in the state, Gov. Maura Healey says. Healey was part of a celebration of the MassEducate program at MassBay Community College Wednesday. She said 10,000 students have enrolled in community colleges for the fall semester, more than double the number of students who qualified for free tuition under “MassReconnect” a year before. ‘This is a big deal,’ Healey said. ‘And we estimate that it’s going to be 45,000 in no time, in just a year.’”
View the full article from CBS News.