Higher Education Trends for 2025: Charting the Continuing Evolution of Learning and Opportunity
“What’s past is prologue”
The Tempest, Act 2, Scene I
The academic community has been undergoing a period of radical reflection. That reflection has helped to put into focus major themes and issues that the community must continue to resolve together throughout 2025.
Enrollment pressures and a barbell recovery
Several factors are putting pressure on enrollments in traditional 4-year and 2-year institutions, from the demographic cliff to the elimination of degree requirements for key jobs to cultural backlash against intellectuals. While many in academia cite that talent is evenly distributed and access is not, the same is true for enrollment interest. The “elite” institutions continue to aggregate record-breaking applicant pools while not increasing their enrollment capacity, maintaining their comfort in an adverse enrollment environment and the institutions that strive to expand and provide broad-based access are enrolling record-breaking numbers of students.
It’s the institutions in the middle that are getting squeezed the most. We predict continued consolidation of institutions that do not have meaningful differentiation in the market. The way out is to take radical steps to change the academic product offering and effectively communicate the difference. Just trying to be the “Harvard of X” is not an effective differentiation strategy.
Serving a broad community
The Students for Fair Admissions judgment was nothing compared to the recent retrenchment of anything titled “diversity” or “DEI” across academic and corporate America. While the judgment was focused on race-conscious affirmative action in admissions decisions, when coupled with the US Presidential election results, the effect has been to drive out diversity and DEI efforts from campuses. Sometimes due to additional legislation, and other times voluntarily to avoid any conflict. How academic institutions continue to provide a broad-based academic environment to enrich the lives of all students and citizens will continue to evolve in 2025.
AI on campus and in the workforce
I recently heard a story (not independently validated, so take it with a grain of salt) about wealthy students at a well-known, private institution paying tutors to attend classes on their behalf while they partied elsewhere. I often tell my own kids that this behavior is “only cheating yourself.” Learning is a joy and privilege and the knowledge acquired is yours and cannot be taken away. This social loafing behavior may only get worse as AI tools allow clever students the opportunity to use AI Agents to research and write their papers for them. While not every student will cheat, and not every AI agent will be robbing a student of a learning opportunity, how academia deals with the continuing advances in AI will be of primary concern throughout 2025. Add to this the fact that the jobs we are preparing our graduates to take will be evolving every day that they are in class and the problem will only get exacerbated.
The university value equation
The higher education bubble is bursting (as slowly as higher education moves itself). As stated earlier about the bar-shaped recovery, the value equation of university is being challenged across a number of areas, from questioning whether the skills acquired are relevant to every job that currently requires them to whether the investment to acquire the skills pays out in the job market. Not every person in the world wants to go to university. Not every person or institution has a positive experience from university. That said, on average, college graduates still do better than high school graduates. And an educated populace is a bulwark of a strong democracy.
Leading the way into our bold future
As we move through 2025, the challenges facing higher education present both obstacles and opportunities. While the landscape continues to evolve, our commitment to advancing higher education and talent development for the 21st Century remains unwavering. By addressing these challenges head-on—from enrollment pressures to AI integration—we can work together to shape a more inclusive, effective, and sustainable future for higher education.