Nicole Hurd, Lafayette College's president, applies experiences from the College Advising Corps to a new arena. ADVERTISEMENT [The Edge Logo]( Did someone forward you this newsletter? [Sign up free]( to receive your own copy. You can now read The Chronicle on [Apple News]( [Flipboard]( and [Google News](. Hi. Iâm Goldie Blumenstyk, a senior writer at The Chronicle covering innovation in and around higher ed. This week I share some insights from a veteran of the college-access movement who now leads a college, and I pass along some resources on debt forgiveness and federal benefit programs. Also, an announcement: Beginning in March, The Edge will publish every other week. If you receive it via email on Wednesdays, youâll still get my reporting on the people and ideas reshaping the sector, but now on alternating weeks. If you are not yet receiving this free newsletter directly in your inbox, this is a great time to [subscribe](. Know someone else whoâd appreciate these takes on key questions in higher ed? Please pass the link to them. ADVERTISEMENT SUBSCRIBE TO THE CHRONICLE Enjoying the newsletter? [Subscribe today]( for unlimited access to essential news, analysis, and advice. âScaleâ isnât the holy grail for impact. Two years ago, when I shared [four lessons in digital strategy]( that Nicole Hurd had learned while leading the College Advising Corps through the first phase of the pandemic, I didnât know she was on the cusp of leaving that organization, which she founded in 2005, to run a college. Now Hurd is 18 months into her term as president of Lafayette College, in Pennsylvania, and I caught up with her recently about what her transition to a new post has taught her about innovating. An academic by training (religious studies), Hurd otherwise has an unusual résumé for a college president, and Iâve long admired [her passion and drive to expand opportunity for students](. Picking up on a conversation we started in person in September, Hurd and I spoke at length last week by phone. Four themes stood out to me: Colleges and groups that help low-income students get to college need to think more broadly about what âaccessâ means. Embedding near-peer counselors in high schools around the country, the College Advising Corps is the nationâs largest organization dedicated to guiding students â about 250,000 a year â down the path to college. Now Hurd is thinking a lot more about studentsâ experiences once they enroll. Colleges may boast of generous financial aid and high graduation rates, she said, but âthat doesnât mean the students will have four awesome years on that campus.â Especially for low-income students at selective colleges, inclusion isnât a given, and Hurd said she always knew that. As president, sheâs trying to focus attention on âwhere some of the cracksâ might be. Do students have the resources to do an internship that might not pay as much as a summer job? Do they have the right clothes for a Pennsylvania winter? Can they afford to go home for the holidays? (Over Thanksgiving, she and her husband hosted 50 students for dinner.) âMy lens is a lot more nuanced now,â she told me. Lafayette is part of the American Talent Initiative, a consortium of colleges that have pledged to increase their enrollment of low-income students â although as Iâve reported, [many are falling short](. So I had to ask about that. Lafayetteâs goal is for low-income students to make up 15 percent of its enrollment by 2025, up from the current 12 percent. The pandemic set the college back a little, Hurd said, but she believes it is now âon the right trajectory,â at 13.5 percent in its current freshman class. âWhat I do know,â Hurd told me, âis these students are out there.â Growth isnât the only way to have impact. After 16 years expanding the Advising Corps, Hurd realized that âgoing deepâ can be just as valuable. âIn the nonprofit space,â she told me, âthereâs lots of pressure to scaleâ â a challenge she used to discuss a lot with [Aimée Eubanks Davis]( and [Alexandra Bernadotte]( two social entrepreneurs who appeared on my [âInnovation That Mattersâ podcast series]( in 2021. Now immersed in the life of a campus with 2,700 students, Hurd is discovering the âhuge social impactâ of preparing individual students to graduate and go out into the world. Collegesâ âaffinityâ advantages in fund raising go only so far. Colleges are said to have an easier time raising funds than nonprofits do because the core donor base â alumni â are familiar with the institution and eager to see it do well. âYou donât have to prove value in the same way,â Hurd put it. âYou can go straight to the hopes and dreams.â (That was in my mind the day after we spoke as I sipped wine at a cocktail party here in D.C. and watched the president of my own alma mater play on some heartstrings during a kickoff for its latest capital campaign.) But that notion of affinity can make colleges complacent, she said. Leaders might want the perfect conditions to solicit a gift. But as she learned at the Advising Corps, âYou canât wait forever to make an ask.â As a college president, Hurd appreciates the luxury of being able to solicit gifts from alumni for something âthey already love.â Often they are willing to invest in projects with a long arc, she said. More nonprofits, she thinks, could benefit from some of that. âPeople have to start talking about investing in nonprofits as institutions,â by funding them for work that extends over multiple years or donating to their endowed funds, she noted. If donors arenât thinking that way, I guess the organizations need to be making the case. Building an organization is a never-ending process. After founding and leading an organization, Hurd is now the 18th president of a liberal-arts college thatâs nearly two centuries old. I wondered if there were fewer ways to shape a more-established institution, but Hurd said otherwise. âThereâs some build in this job, too,â she told me, noting how the college continues to evolve. âTurns out,â she said, âthereâs lots of clay to play with.â Thatâs a good reminder for all of us. Even at tradition-bound places, thereâs plenty of room for change. Check these out. Here are some education-related items from other outlets that recently caught my eye. Did I miss a good one? [Let me know](mailto:goldie@chronicle.com). - President Bidenâs broad debt-forgiveness plan has attracted a lot of attention â and litigation â over the past year, but the administrationâs other student-loan proposals, which would alter income-based-repayment plans, are likely to have a longer-lasting impact. [An analysis]( by scholars at the Urban Institute highlights how the proposal could transform such repayment plans from âa safety net that supports borrowers with low incomes into a substantial subsidy for most undergraduate students who take on debt.â If the rules take effect as proposed, âfully repaying a student loan will be the exception rather than the rule,â write Matthew Chingos, Jason Delisle, and Jason Cohn. âFor typical Pell Grant recipients, the additional loan forgiveness will be larger than the total Pell Grants they receive while in college.â
- The College Board has been drawing fire for appearing to have capitulated to right-wing pressure over its new Advanced Placement course in African American studies, but as The New York Times reports in [this deeply sourced piece]( âin todayâs political climate, a dispute may have been unavoidable.â The story details the chronology of the courseâs development, some of the back-and-forth between Florida officials and the College Board, perspectives from Black-studies scholars, and the latest assertions from the College Board that Florida education officials showed âignorance and derision for the field of African American studies.â
- For colleges looking to help students tap into federal-benefits programs that offer assistance for food, low-cost internet access, and other services, the Benefits Data Trust has just published this new [tool kit]( with step-by-step instructions on how to establish such programs and make them effective. Got a tip youâd like to share or a question youâd like me to answer? Let me know, at goldie@chronicle.com. If you have been forwarded this newsletter and would like to see past issues, [find them here](. To receive your own copy, free, register [here](. If you want to follow me on Twitter (yeah, for now at least, Iâm still there), [@GoldieStandard]( is my handle. NEWSLETTER [Sign Up for the Teaching Newsletter]( Find insights to improve teaching and learning across your campus. Delivered on Thursdays. To read this newsletter as soon as it sends, [sign up]( to receive it in your email inbox. Goldieâs Weekly Picks THE DREAD OF NEW TECH [ChatGPT Has Everyone Freaking Out About Cheating. Itâs Not the First Time.]( By Eva Surovell [STORY IMAGE]( Remember when the proliferation of calculators caused a panic? SPONSOR CONTENT | University of Birmingham [University of Birmingham Grows a Global Partnership]( OPENING THE GATES [Congrats! You Didnât Apply, but We Admitted You Anyway.]( By Eric Hoover [STORY IMAGE]( New experiments are short-circuiting the admissions process. Hereâs why they matter. THE GLOVES ARE OFF [Flagships Across the Country Prosper While Regional Colleges Wither]( By Lee Gardner [STORY IMAGE]( The gap is widening. Who wants to attend a hollowed-out college? ADVERTISEMENT FROM THE CHRONICLE STORE [Solving Higher Ed's Staffing Crisis - The Chronicle Store]( [Solving Higher Ed's Staffing Crisis]( The Covid-19 pandemic upended norms surrounding how academic institutions work, putting the relationship between colleges and their staff members under greater stress. [Order your copy]( to explore how higher education can better manage a crucial part of its work force. NEWSLETTER FEEDBACK [Please let us know what you thought of today's newsletter in this three-question survey](. This newsletter was sent to {EMAIL}. [Read this newsletter on the web](. [Manage]( your newsletter preferences, [stop receiving]( this email, or [view]( our privacy policy. © 2023 [The Chronicle of Higher Education](
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