BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY SYSTEM EASES REQUIREMENTS FOR JEWISH STUDENTS SEEKING TRANSFER DUE TO ANTISEMITIC FEARS

Florida State University System Chancellor Ray Rodrigues issued an emergency order this week for the state system to “remove barriers for undergraduate students who are seeking to transfer to a Florida university because of a well-founded fear of antisemitic or other religious discrimination, harassment, intimidation, or violence.” Rodrigues' action came after Florida Governor (and Republican presidential candidate) Ron DeSantis said in his annual State of the State that Jewish students would find Florida welcoming them “with open arms.”

NEW BILL INTRODUCED TO U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TO MAKE CHANGES TO FEDERAL GRANTS AND LOANS FOR STUDENTS

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have introduced a bill intended to make major changes to how students pay for college. The “College Cost Reduction Act” includes a variety of changes to student loans, capping how much a student can borrow, making colleges potentially responsible for unpaid loans, and reforming the Pell Grant program (doubling it for many juniors and seniors), among other things. Some of the changes have bipartisan support, including Pell Grant reform, but it’s not clear yet how much support the full bill will attract.

EMORY UNIVERSITY’S FACULTY SENATE SEEKS ANSWERS AFTER INVESTIGATION INTO USE OF ATLANTA POLICE IN PEACEFUL STUDENT PROTEST

Wading into the recent conversation on many campuses about freedom of speech and assembly, this week The Chronicle of Higher Education examines a campus incident and subsequent university actions from last year. Students at Emory University staged a demonstration in April to bring attention to their concerns about the Atlanta Police Department and a new training facility it plans to build. The students organized the peaceful protest on the University Quad, but when some students decided to camp out overnight, the Open Expression Observer (a trained faculty or staff member acting on behalf of the dean of campus life) alerted the students that they needed to disperse or possibly face conduct violations and be forcibly removed by campus police. Sometime after midnight, the observer contacted the campus police, who in turn called the Atlanta Police, and dozens of officers from both departments dispersed the protest. Now, the school’s faculty and students want the university to explain itself.

UNITED NEGRO COLLEGE FUND RECEIVES $100 MILLION GIFT TO SUPPORT POOLED ENDOWMENT FOR HBCUS

Thirty-seven Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) got good news as the new year began. The United Negro College Fund is engaged in a $1 billion capital campaign that is to include at least $370 million for HBCU endowments. The Lilly Endowment Inc., a “private philanthropic foundation supporting the causes of religion, education and community development,” put a big dent in that goal with a $100 million gift toward that $370 million goal. According to Inside Higher Ed, the average HBCU endowment is only about $16 million, so an additional $10 million from the UNCF for each school would be truly meaningful. (For comparison, William and Mary’s endowment is almost $1.4 billion.)

SUNY CHANCELLOR AND BOARD OF TRUSTEES APPLAUD NY GOVERNOR’S PROPOSED GUARANTEED ADMISSION INITIATIVE

In New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s State of the State address on January 9, 2024, she announced her plan to offer direct admission to students in the top 10 percent of their graduating classes to State University of New York and City University of New York schools. In a statement released by the Chancellor and Board, “As we have seen in other states, this plan will advance equity while helping to retain our most talented students.” In addition, the governor is proposing legislation which will require every public school district to ensure all high school graduates complete the FAFSA or the NY State DREAM Act Application or sign a waiver attesting that they were made aware of the financial aid opportunities, but chose not to apply.

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

In response to the U.S. Supreme Court decision last June, James Murray Jr., a Ph.D. student at the University of Kentucky, argues that the end of race-based considerations in college admissions opens a door for reparations for the descendants of enslaved people in the form of educational consideration and tuition remission. Citing a variety of legal scholars—as well as questions from conservative Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh during oral arguments—Murray suggests that a person’s specific genealogical lineage should be examined, not that person’s racial makeup per se, to determine preferences and financial assistance up to full tuition.

Arena BioWorks is a Cambridge, Massachusetts, startup company with interests in pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. On the face of it, there’s nothing unusual about that, but when The New York Times refers to company researchers as “a splinter group of scientists,” you can bet this is no ordinary startup. With half a billion dollars on hand, Arena BioWorks isn’t just filling its coffers with money—it’s luring academic researchers away from tenured and high-visibility jobs at prestigious universities. Paydays for some of these rock-star scientists are reputedly in the range of $10 million, not to mention the freedom to explore their areas of interest with a lot less bureaucracy than in a university setting. A single, deep-pocketed research company (funded by Michael Dell of Dell Computers and Boston Celtics owner Stephen Pagliuca, among others) probably isn’t going to blow up university research by itself. But it’s a sign that times are changing in biotech and colleges and universities probably need to start thinking differently about how they approach the care and feeding of science students and faculty, as well as their output.

At the input end of things, Forbes blogger Brennan Barnard says students should start thinking differently about how they approach the college admission process. Calling on high schools students to “revolt against the idea that admission is a zero-sum game” and “resist the impulse to approach your studies as simply a means to an end”—maybe harder to do now, knowing there’s a $10 million biotech payday out there—he urges students not to let the prospect of admission to a given school or a given major dictate what courses and academic risks they take. He goes on to call for a measured approach (like the one we urge students to take) to things like testing and rankings. In short: “Revolt against a single definition of success and the notion that being admitted to any one college will guarantee contentment or thriving.”

As if to prove the value of Barnard’s advice, in his newsletter writer Jeff Selingo shares some “where are they now” type reporting about three students he followed through the admission process in his book “Who Gets In, and Why.” All members of their different schools’ classes of 2019, Grace (accepted at UCLA), Nicole (Northeastern University), and Chris (Gettysburg College) have followed a variety of paths since graduation. Love this!

The students’ stories show in vivid color that the acceptance and rejection letters are only the first steps in the next part of the story and that the costs (financial, emotional, and personal) of “success” in the process accumulate long after a high school senior crosses a stage to become a graduate. The stories he told in the book and the stories he tells now are worth reading, because there’s something in them for just about anyone applying to college today.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

As we approach the midpoint of the school year, our students are busy with midterm or final exams and papers, but juniors are making time for their first round of check-in meetings to make sure they are on track! Once the second semester begins, we recommend students and families begin to plan for college visits or revisits in February, March, and April.

Of course, college visit planning will look different depending on the students’ class years. Juniors should be researching colleges, attending virtual visits and information sessions, and beginning to make plans to take advantage of school breaks, long weekends, and in-service days for on-campus trips. As seniors receive admission decisions, they should make note of programming that schools are offering for accepted students and look ahead to March and April to get some visits on the calendar, especially if they have not yet been able to visit a school in person yet. Remember: it is not a good idea to commit to a school that you’ve never seen in real life!

And on a lighter note, who else has been watching RushTok this week? Panhellenic (sorority) recruitment has just finished up at so many schools, including Northwestern, Tulane, Villanova, Virginia Tech and fan favorite SMU, and some of us (cough) have been tuning in for all those #OOTDs. I just finished a meeting with a junior who knew more about each chapter’s reputation on the various campuses than some of the girls who attend the actual schools probably do—I was very impressed with her research :)

While you can learn a lot about a school’s culture through these videos, remember that you’re seeing content created for entertainment purposes - and some of these girls are professional content creators! So the stories they tell are not necessarily reflective of the typical student experience at each of the schools. Still, there’s no denying the amount of Cartier jewelry on the SMU campus— that’s for sure!