The storm clouds hovering above public and private universities in the United States are neither divine judgement nor a day of reckoning. Rather, they signal a wave of uncharted policies and practices institutions must learn to navigate or risk being swept away by swelling tides. Especially during a season when Americans’ confidence in higher education is swaying in the wind.
Federal examples of the changing landscape include the Department of Education reshaping higher education through federal loan limits by narrowing the definition of a “professional degree.” Another is a new Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) rule that caps the visa stay at four years for foreign students pursuing a graduate degree in the United States. For students pursuing a Ph.D., this could result in an estimated reduction of 112,000 international students and a $3.4 billion loss to the U.S. economy.