Tertiary education

The crisis you're describing is really just one symptom of a much larger, frankly, terminal diagnosis.

If we look at the 2026 EDUCAUSE Horizon Report, higher education is facing this unprecedented convergence of pressures.

Right, the stressors are hitting all at once.

Exactly.

consulting the faculty? Yes.

Picture a 20-year-old undergrad who has received specialized training in learning science and generative AI risks sitting across from a tenured professor to help redesign a midterm assessment.

By treating students as partners rather than adversaries, we preserve the relational core of higher education.

Look, the Trail Guides model is beautiful in theory, but it relies on an absolute fantasy.

You're listening to the World of Higher Education podcast, presented by Higher Education Strategy Associates, the premier Canadian firm in higher education research and engagement.

Hi, everyone.

I'm Alex Usher, and this is the opening episode of season five of the World of Higher Education podcast.

American higher education is going through some unprecedented times.

Republican governments in the states and in Washington now treat universities and colleges not as partners, but as an enemy to be conquered.

University presidents are as likely to be pilloried by politicians as they are to be treated as important civic leaders.

And legislators seem to feel empowered to meddle in areas of higher education management that would never have occurred to them even 10 years ago.

My guest today is a frequent guest of our program, Michigan State Professor of Higher Education, Brendan Cantwell.

um you know i wouldn't have done it and and did i actually cast my belt yes but because i had somebody reminding me of it in the right point of time because otherwise it would have been a week out and i would have been like it's too late to request my ballot i don't have any way of getting home and it was too late to change my registration to be local even if i had thought that might be an option and so i think some of this just in time messaging for young voters as part of the role that college campuses can play.

And to not put too fine a pin on it, but what many of your listeners may not realize is actually since the late 1990s, the amended version of the Federal Higher Education Act requires almost all colleges and universities who get any kind of federal funding to make a good faith effort to register eligible students.

And so that actually-

They came

And for example, in the Youth Voter Voting Rights Act, which I helped to draft, which will be reintroduced in Congress this month, we actually try to identify universities to be tagged as recognized as public agencies, just like the motor vehicle commissions, so that there is a requirement to register individuals to come and vote.

Anytime you interface with any public agency, right, the DMV, public benefits, anything, you have to be required, the government is required to give you an opportunity to register to vote.

And the same should be said of our institutions of higher education.

So there's a bunch in the chat on different kinds of barriers to voting.

No, you definitely cannot.

Yet, as we look at the landscape of higher education today, we seem to be treating our institutions as if they have like infinite operational integrity.

We're navigating what researchers are calling this state of perpetual transition.

And that transition is being driven by a true poly-crisis.

The only sustainable buffer against this compounding change is renegotiating the psychological contract with your workforce and, you know, deeply nurturing their intrinsic motivation.

But let's lay the groundwork by looking at the sheer volume of what is being asked of these people.

If you're working in higher education administration right now, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Oh,