This Week’s Higher Education Brief
As higher education leaders brace for deep federal cuts, signs of student re-engagement offer cautious optimism. A growing number of colleges are embedding purpose and meaning into their retention strategies. Credential options are expanding, and concern over student data security continues to grow. 

Senate Testimony Highlights Drastic Budget Cuts: The Department of Education’s budget request slashes billions from higher ed programs, alarming leaders across sectors.

Stop-Outs Are Coming Back—Kind Of: Re-enrollment is trending upward, but equity gaps persist in who returns and who completes.

Retention Through Purpose-Building: A new study links students’ sense of purpose to retention, especially among first-gen students.

Spotlight: What Does Student Success Feel Like?

This week’s news taps into a growing tension: even as we track enrollment upticks and propose new performance metrics, students are telling us that what keeps them enrolled isn’t policy—it’s purpose.

A new report from Inside Higher Ed finds that students who feel their college experience has meaning are significantly more likely to persist. These findings are especially strong for first-generation and underrepresented learners. And it invites a deeper question:
What conditions help students connect their coursework and campus lives to their identity, values, or future plans?

This thread also weaves through re-enrollment data. While some students are returning, gaps in completion still align with familiar lines of race, income, and caregiving status. So even as the credentialing movement gains momentum, the challenge remains:
How do we ensure meaningful engagement, not just fast-tracking to the finish line?

At a moment when funding faces historic threats, this reframing might offer a counterweight.

What if we evaluated institutional success not by enrollment alone, but by whether students can say, “This experience matters to me”?

How is your institution helping students connect learning to purpose?
In conversations about budgeting and strategy, is meaning part of the metric?

Published: June 4, 2025