In a marked shift from a year ago, workers are now more likely to say AI is a net-negative than a net-positive when it comes to finding jobs, building wealth, and securing their quality of life, according to a new national survey released today by national nonprofit Jobs for the Future (JFF). The survey, conducted by AudienceNet in late 2025, also found that early-career workers are more likely to feel AI’s impact on their jobs compared to those with more experience. In addition, just over one-third of workers say employers are providing the training, guidance, or opportunities they need to use AI in their jobs, a drop of almost 10 percentage points. The new research builds on a 2024 JFF survey, which found that a plurality of workers—defined as anyone employed—said AI did more good than harm across society. In the new survey, the sentiment flipped; more workers now say AI does more harm than good. Optimism about AI’s impact on workers also fell by 10 percentage points. In the 2024 survey, nearly half of respondents felt somewhat or very optimistic about the impact of AI on workers. In the new survey, only about one-third of workers (39%) say they feel optimistic.
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Friday, August 28, 2026
Once globally preeminent, U.S. universities are sliding into decline - Jon Marcus, Hechinger Report
Now, as a new academic year begins, American dominance in higher education globally is incontrovertibly in decline, according to data, international rankings and independent experts. The slide has been accelerated by a year and a half of funding cuts, restrictions on international students and curbs on what can be said or taught. But it began before those political challenges, with enrollment declines, lackluster returns on ever-rising prices and public mistrust. “It takes a while for all of these problems to trickle down, but they are beginning to trickle down,” said Eric Mlyn, a faculty fellow at the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University who studies academic freedom.
Private Colleges Are Losing Their Safest Market Position. The Middle Is Where Demand Dies First - Soren Kaplan, Inc.
Higher education’s squeeze shows why leaders with neither premium power nor low costs can be first to crack when demand turns against them badly. Private colleges now discount their sticker price by a record 57 percent for first-year students, and net tuition revenue is falling. On July 1, new federal caps on student loans took effect, squeezing the business model that funds much of higher education. Dozens of schools are cutting academic programs and staff to close budget gaps. These pressures look like a story about weak colleges failing. The deeper pattern is an industry splitting into two, with the strong ends pulling away from a collapsing middle. That raises a question every leader should ask about their own market: when demand shrinks, which competitors die first?
Thursday, August 27, 2026
New self-paced AI training courses launch - Purdue University
Teaching and Learning Technologies (TLT) has launched a new set of Artificial Intelligence Training Courses to help Purdue instructors and staff use AI confidently and responsibly in their day-to-day work. The four self-paced courses cover AI policy and ethics, approved tools, and practical ways to apply AI to teaching, research, and administrative tasks. TLT built the courses in collaboration with Purdue’s Center for Instructional Excellence, Purdue Libraries, and Purdue Information and Technology’s AI and Automation team, keeping the content grounded in the tools and policies in use across campus. And because the professional development courses are built to be updated as guidance and tools change, they will stay current as AI keeps evolving.
Why college students are paying way less for course materials now - Alcino Donadel, University Business
College students are spending markedly less on textbooks and other course materials than they were two decades ago thanks to the continued expansion of digital learning. Students spent $388 on course materials for the entire 2025-26 academic year. That’s 26% less than five years ago and about 50% less than in 2007-08, when students paid $701 on average for course materials, the latest Student Watch report from the National Association of College Stores found. Spending on course materials has remained relatively stable over the past three years. The decline in student spending has mirrored growing preference for digital textbooks accessed on laptops, desktops and other devices, said Lacey Wallace, research analyst for the National Association of College Stores.
College costs for families up 10% from last year, poll finds - Natalie Schwartz, Higher Ed Dive
College costs for families averaged $34,019 during the 2025-26 academic year, up 10% from the previous year, according to an annual report from financial services company Sallie Mae. Families paid out of pocket for 49% of those costs — which include tuition, fees, housing and other expenses — drawing from student and parent income and savings, according to a poll for Sallie Mae conducted by Ipsos. They covered another 27% through scholarships and grants and 22% through borrowing. A much smaller amount, 2%, came from gifts from friends and family. How families pay for college could change in the coming years with the implementation of new federal student lending caps. Even so, two-thirds of surveyed families said they support federal lending limits, and 53% said colleges should respond by lowering tuition rates.
Wednesday, August 26, 2026
More Than a Virtual Class: How BU Virtual Brings the Classroom to Students Around the World - Boston University Virtual
For a student logging into a live session in one of Boston University’s online graduate programs, the experience can look deceptively simple: a faculty member appears on screen, classmates join from around the world, and the class begins. What students don’t see is everything happening around that moment. Behind each live online class is a coordinated team of producers, technicians, learning facilitators and instructional designers working alongside faculty members to create an experience designed specifically for working professionals. Cameras are positioned, audio is monitored, presentations and video are queued, graphics appear at the right moment, student questions are managed, and faculty are supported throughout the session. The goal is not to showcase the technology. It is to make the technology disappear.
UC introduces AI Buddy Program for staff amid learning, privacy concerns - Andrew Ramiro Diaz, Daily Bruin
The UC launched a new initiative in July that encourages staff to learn more about how to use artificial intelligence tools. The AI Buddy Program pairs UC Office of the President staff at differing levels of AI expertise to meet once or twice a week and learn from each other. The program sign-up form allows participants to select any AI tool they are interested in learning, such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. However, UCLA professors said they are concerned about the UC’s use of AI, including its impacts on teaching and learning, privacy and data protection. The University advised staff on its website to speak to their supervisors before participating in the program. Tobias Higbie, the chair of external relations for the Council of UC Faculty Associations, said he believes the UC should be cautious when implementing AI tools because they can risk students’ data security.
AI agents are sitting through students’ online courses, and colleges are struggling to stop them - Varun Mirchandani, Digital Trends
AI cheating has already gone from asking a chatbot to write an essay to using tools that can make that AI-written work look human. We’ve previously talked about AI tools designed to help students cheat and the growing problem of AI detectors struggling to keep up, as well as how commonly students are already using AI for homework. Now the technology isn’t merely helpiing students do the work. In some cases, it can effectively be the student. Just tell the AI to take the class. According to a New York Times report by Dana Goldstein and Alan Blinder, students can take things a step further and hand an entire online course over to an AI agent. As per the report, AI agents can be given simple instructions such as “log in and complete my quiz” and then operate inside online learning platforms. They can watch prerecorded lectures, take tests, write papers, and even participate in discussions with classmates.
Tuesday, August 25, 2026
Author Talks: The biggest misconceptions about leadership - McKinsey
What if success depends less on talent than on luck, resilience, and your choices when things go wrong? Former Inflection CEO Mike Grossman challenges conventional wisdom about success and leadership. In this edition of Author Talks, McKinsey’s Artemis Vallianatos speaks with Mike Grossman, six-time Silicon Valley CEO and McKinsey alumnus, about Failure Is An Option: Reflections of a Silicon Valley CEO (Simon & Schuster, July 2026). Drawing on nearly three decades as a leader and lifelong learner, Grossman challenges the notion that hard work alone determines success. Instead, he argues that integrity, adaptability, and learning from failure are what truly define effective leadership. An edited version of the conversation follows.
Lifelong learning remains central to Mayo Clinic’s mission amid rapid healthcare change - Matthew Brenden, Mayo Clinic
Healthcare is evolving at an unprecedented pace. Advances in artificial intelligence, precision medicine, digital health and quality improvement are transforming how care is delivered, while new knowledge and evolving professional standards require clinicians to continually adapt. For healthcare organizations, keeping pace is about more than meeting licensure or certification requirements. It requires a workforce prepared to respond to emerging technologies, new models of care and rapidly expanding medical knowledge while continuing to deliver the highest quality patient care. At Mayo Clinic, continuous professional development is a strategic investment in that future.
One New Thing: Virtual Reality Brings Collaborative Learning to Life - Melissa Morriss-Olson, US News
Purdue University’s Envision Center has developed CollabXR, an extended reality platform that allows faculty and students to enter the same immersive virtual environment and interact with three-dimensional models together. During a spring 2025 pilot, instructors in disciplines ranging from nursing and aeronautics to the liberal arts used the platform to help students visualize and explore complex concepts that would be difficult to experience in a traditional classroom. According to CollabXR’s website, the tool can allow students to “watch a heart beat in the palm of [their] hands, annotate the Hubble telescope or dive into an exploding star in space.”
Monday, August 24, 2026
From Workshop to Anytime: Bringing Live Training Online - Office of Innovative Technologies (UK)
Some of the most valuable learning opportunities on campus happen in workshops. Whether they happen in a conference room or over Zoom, they create energy, connection, and opportunities for real-time questions. Workshops support learning and engagement across campus throughout the year. What a single session can’t do is reach everyone who needs it or remain available when future learners are ready. When a workshop is worth offering again or making available to an audience that can’t all gather at once, an online, self‑paced version keeps that good work going. Creating an effective online learning experience is more than simply posting a recording.
How to Leverage Tech to Serve Rural Communities - Catherine Han and Heather Marriott, NCOA
The MAC, Inc., Maryland Living Well Center of Excellence (LWCE) is using technology to break down barriers for older adults in Smith Island and across Dorchester, Somerset, Wicomico, and Worcester counties. All are regions marked by transportation limitations, health access challenges, and geographic isolation. Yet LWCE has become a beacon of innovation in aging services. LWCE’s State Program Coordinator, Sue Lachenmayr, shared her insights on how to most effectively use technology to provide programming to rural populations.
LSU Launches Free AI Literacy Essentials Course - LSU
Today, LSU launched AI Literacy Essentials, a free online course that provides a general introduction to artificial intelligence (AI) and how to use it effectively, professionally, and ethically. The course is offered through LSU Online’s professional development program and is available now to LSU students, faculty, and staff, and will open to the general public on August 26. As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly integrated into education, business, healthcare, government, and daily life, the ability to understand and use AI effectively is no longer a competitive advantage. It is rapidly becoming a prerequisite for success in nearly every field. AI Literacy Essentials helps participants develop the knowledge and confidence needed to navigate an AI-driven world, regardless of their background or prior experience.
Friday, August 21, 2026
Would You Trust AI for Ethical Advice? - Christian Terwiesch, Gideon Nave, Lennart Meincke; Knowledge at Wharton
No disrespect to philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah, but Wharton professor Christian Terwiesch no longer reads his wildly popular advice column, “The Ethicist.” Terwiesch used to love the long-running column in The New York Times until 2023, when he and two Wharton colleagues conducted an experiment to see whether people could tell the difference between Appiah’s advice or advice spit out by ChatGPT. In a blind study, even experienced professionals — including ethics professors and clergy — could not tell whether the AI-generated advice was more or less useful than the advice provided by Appiah. In fact, random participants preferred the AI-generated advice 59.6% of the time. An additional study found that participants who were initially resistant to taking advice from the chatbot became more accepting as they were shown the high quality of the AI reasoning.
A look at trends in college consolidation since 2016 - Higher Ed Dive Team
We’re tracking major closings, mergers, acquisitions and other consolidation among public and private nonprofit institutions from 2016 to the present. The last few years have been tumultuous for many U.S. colleges. Pressure to lower tuition, stagnating state funding and a shrinking pool of high school graduates has strained many institutions’ bottom lines and questioned their long-term viability. Those pressures have caused some to close. We’ve been tracking consolidation across higher education since the fall of 2018, looking back as far as 2016. Our goal was not to create a death watch but rather to give our readers a tool to show the scope of that activity and any patterns within it. To make those trends easier to detect, we updated our tracker with a map showing closings and significant consolidations by state. In doing that, we also revised our list to omit certain consolidation activity among public institutions in which their footprints remained largely the same. Prior to this update, we removed for-profit colleges from our list; this was due to their differences in scale from private nonprofit and public institutions as well as the sometimes fragmented nature of their closings.
Pace of college closings picks up, with more projected - Jon Marcus, Hechinger Report
Pssst — wanna buy a college campus? There’s a sudden market in abandoned campuses, an outgrowth of the accelerating rate of colleges closing in the face of falling enrollment, rising debt and other problems. More than 440 of the nation’s private, nonprofit four-year colleges and universities are now at risk, based on enrollment trends, debt and other measures, according to projections by Huron Consulting Group. That’s a quarter of the total. Among the most endangered: small, rural and religiously affiliated institutions. And how to dispose of the real estate is among the least of the challenges facing shuttering campuses and the students they serve.
Thursday, August 20, 2026
What Canvas learned from a massive cyberattack - Alcino Donadel, University Business
Artificial intelligence has made it easier for cyberattackers to breach college and university systems and steal valuable student and staff data. Canvas, higher education’s most high-profile victim this year, is remodeling its security to prepare for the inevitable next attempt. What experts have learned is that colleges may be sorely underprepared for the next evolution in cybersecurity. “A lot of the conversation around cybersecurity in the next six months is going to be about speed,” says Zach Pendleton, chief architect at Instructure. “Everything that made a good security program a year ago still matters, but the speed at which we’re implementing them doesn’t match the moment.” Instructure, the edtech company behind learning management system Canvas, suffered one of the largest data breaches in the U.S. this year after cybercriminals gained access through a third-party vendor—an increasingly common occurrence in higher ed.
Texas State University, Central Texas College announce expanded co-enrollment partnership serving Central Texas - Jayme Blaschke, Texas State University
Texas State University (TXST) and Central Texas College (CTC) have announced a joint expansion of the TXST Local co-enrollment program, creating new opportunities for students in Central Texas to earn both associate and bachelor’s degrees through a coordinated, affordable pathway while allowing students to remain closer to home. TXST Local is Texas State’s co-enrollment program, currently offered in partnership with Collin College, Dallas College, San Jacinto College, and Sul Ross State University. The program allows students to complete more than half of their degree at partner college tuition rates while earning a TXST bachelor’s degree. Additionally, students can access TXST resources including career services, academic support, athletics events, advising, and partner college resources from day one. The addition of Central Texas College marks the program’s continued expansion across the state.
The Next Competitive Advantage in Online Education - Adam Fein, 2U
Adam Fein, Vice President of Academic Innovation and Strategic Partnerships at 2U, reflects on how online education has become an integral part of institution-wide strategies and why alignment and partnership are increasingly important to its success. Online education has always required many parts of a university to work together: admissions, financial aid, academics, advising, career services, and technology, among others. What’s new is how central it has become to an institution’s long-term strategy. What was once treated as a specialized afterthought is now core to how universities reach learners, build their academic catalog, respond to workforce needs, and ultimately create new revenue streams. You can see that shift in the diversity of what institutions are bringing online. Degree programs are now one component of a broader portfolio that can include certificates, microcredentials, enterprise partnerships, and other forms of learning.
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