Robert Kelchen

This is why the wealthiest segment of higher ed has a hard time pushing back against endowment taxes.

It is unclear how substantive the session will be or whether it produces concrete proposals. Not everyone with a stake in the future of college sports will be in the room. Given the participants, the discussion is likely to focus primarily on major football programs, with Olympic sports and women’s athletics unlikely to command much attention, said Robert Kelchen, a professor of higher education policy at the University of Tennessee.

I'm keeping an eye on today's college athletics meeting at the White House. As with most events right now, expect the unexpected.

www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

And not treating predictions markets as gaming matters. Gambling patterns are shifting enough that Tennessee's lottery scholarship is taking a hit as people go to untaxed markets.

The Wildest Frat Party on Campus? Prediction Markets Kalshi and Polymarket pour money into deals with social-media influencers and students, who try to parlay rumors, insider info into cash.

I am zero percent surprised that "predictions markets" are focusing on fraternities as an audience. The thing that doesn't make sense is how these don't violate insider trading regulations or fall under gambling statutes.

Seton Hall had the expectation of seven students (to avoid a 3/3 teaching load and get 2/2) when I was there.

Cal State campuses battle enrollment, money losses. How one is trying to turn it around Several Cal State campuses are caught in a spiral of declining enrollment, threatening their budgets and programs. One in LA is focused on retention and re-enrolling students who dropped out.

If you knew that a free month-long summer program would increase your chances of staying in college by 18%, but the program was 8 to 16 hours a week, would you do it?

Or would the need to work outweigh the benefits?

My story describes the program. It's one way a campus seeks to grow enrollment.

Following Governor’s Order, Oklahoma Lawmakers Move to Block Tenure Statewide The legislative session is underway in dozens of states, and higher education is very much on the agenda. Here’s the latest.

Remember the Oklahoma EO to "phase out" tenure at regional institutions and community colleges? This bill would extend that directive, meaning no hires with tenure at U. of Oklahoma or Oklahoma State U. after Jan. 1, 2027 - renewable contracts instead.

www.chronicle.com/article/stat...

‘We Are in a Crisis’: Why Louisville’s Leaders Are Proposing a Cap on Sports Spending The university says it’s struggling to cover the growing costs of competition, and the government needs to act quickly before sports are shuttered nationwide.

The University of Louisville deserves credit for being the first Power Four athletic program to propose a cap on athletics spending. It's also strategic as they fall farther behind the SEC and Big Ten in terms of resources.

That's about how long it would take an experienced analyst to do this.

#AcademicSky: Have you come across AI-generated citations that attach your name to nonexistent papers? Have you reviewed papers that cite made-up published works? If so, tell me your story below 👇

We’ve Been Trendspotting for Years. What’s Our Track Record? What we got right, what we missed, and what it means.

I always appreciate the Chronicle's annual Trends in Higher Education report, and it's even better to see a look back at how good their crystal ball has been.

Does anyone here use a point system for faculty workload? As in, we figured out points for different service activities, then set a point-based expectation for the year?

What do you think of that approach? Are there pitfalls? I like the idea of also thoughtfully surfacing how much folks are doing.

GW sold Virginia campus for $427 million to Amazon for data center development The deal transfers all of GW’s roughly 122 acres of property in Loudoun County, Virginia, to ADS for $427,299,350 — roughly $3.5 million an acre — according to real estate records.

A proud Research I university selling off a branch campus...to Amazon to build a data center...and to help shore up a budget struggling with research cuts feels like a prototypical 2026 American higher education story.

A heavy one. An axe is light and designed for chopping trees instead of splitting big logs.

Mauls and axes are very different things, my friend. I keep both in my shed.

Yikes. I was thankful that I had crammed four dissertation/proposal defenses into the week before everything shut down.

That was calming down.

Exploring Factors Influencing Administrative Spending in Higher Education Despite increasing financial challenges facing much of higher education, relatively little is known about how institutions allocate resources to different activities, particularly in areas other than ...

New working paper: I use detailed spending data from HelioCampus to look at universities' non-academic spending. Institutional budget models and centralization appear to influence administrative spending, and there are some strategic decisions made during tough budget years. (1/)

They gave me access.

I celebrated passing my proposal defense by going out to my favorite trails and running 15 miles. So yes.

It seems like there is some of that going on, yes. This is dense stuff... I would love your thoughts.

Do it!

Florida Board Approves Ban on H-1B Visas The Florida Board of Governors on Monday approved an eight-month pause on H-1B visas, becoming the second state after Texas to ban public colleges and universities from hiring new faculty, researchers...

Florida officially joins Texas as the second state to limit merit-based hiring at public universities by banning H-1B visa sponsorship. In higher ed, hiring via H-1B is a high bar to clear (and requires a lot of paperwork).

Screenshot of a 3hr old post from the GW Hatchet: “BREAKING: GW sold its Virginia campus to Amazon Data Services, an Amazon subsidiary that manages the company's data centers, for $427 million on Friday. The deed, obtained by The Hatchet, authorizes ADS to develop the campus into a data or information technology center. STORY TK”

GW‘s student newspaper appears to have broken the story that the institution has sold a satellite campus to Amazon to be turned into a data center, which is just about chef’s kiss for the state of American higher education rn

We got a little towel warmer. It's well worth it for the kids!

Illinois Wants to Spread More State Money Around. Not So Fast, Says Its Flagship. A plan to award new funding to public colleges based on their financial need would “siphon resources” from the U. of Illinois, its president argues.

A few blue states have tried to redo higher ed funding formulas to prioritize regional publics over flagships. Just like in K-12 education, that is an exceedingly difficult task because the losers are politically powerful.

Not yet, but that's a great idea!

I would love your thoughts on this work! My next paper in this series will be looking at how academic units (schools/colleges within universities) spend money, particularly on administrative functions. (5/5)

That's a great question!

A scatterplot with overall spending changes on the x-axis and spending changes for each component on the y-axis.

This gets at whether universities are trying to protect certain units during budget cuts. Anything below the 45-degree line is a larger cut (or smaller increase) for the functional expenditure category, while anything above means a larger increase/smaller cut. (4/)