Colleges and Universities

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🎓 Harvard's grade reckoning

Data: Harvard. Chart: Noah Bressner/Axios Harvard's faculty begins voting today on limiting the number of A's professors can award, Axios Boston's Mike Deehan writes. Why it matters: The steady rise of A's and B's at elite universities since the early 2000s has eroded GPAs as a screening tool for employers and graduate schools. 📈 Stunning stat: In 2010, A's accounted for one-third of all marks, according to an internal Harvard report. By 2025, that number doubled to over 60%. More on Harvard's proposal ...

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🤖 ChatGPT powers grade inflation

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

AI is exacerbating the trend of colleges handing out too many A's, Axios' Josephine Walker reports. Why it matters: Universities and colleges were already concerned about grade inflation. But now they must worry that graduates are leaving AI-proficient rather than knowledgeable about their subjects of study. ✔️ The big picture: It isn't a case where A- students get bumped to an A, says Igor Chirikov, a UC Berkeley professor who authored a study on AI and grade inflation. "We have a C student who is now an A student," Chirikov tells Axios, citing his analysis of grades given between 2018 and 2025 at an unnamed Texas research university. 📈 What they found: Since the release of ChatGPT in 2022, "excellent" grades rose by 30% in classes where AI is useful, such as English composition and coding. In classes where it's not — like sculpture and lab-based courses — grades remained flat. Classes where homework was heavily weighted saw a higher rate of grade inflation, suggesting students got an AI-assisted boost. 📓 What to watch: Professors are getting crafty with steps like requiring handwritten or oral exams.

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📚 Six-figure tuitions

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

There's a growing six-figure club of colleges charging $100,000 or more for a single year of tuition. At least 16 schools, including Duke, Georgetown, UChicago, NYU, USC and Amherst, have crossed that benchmark, New York Magazine reports ($). What to watch: 85 colleges were already charging more than $90,000 last year so look for more entrants into the six-figure club in the next few years.

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Yale's happiness guru

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Stock: Getty Images

If happiness science had a celebrity, it'd be Yale Professor Laurie Santos, Axios' Natalie Daher writes. 📚 Santos' class on well-being was Yale's most popular in 300 years when she introduced it in 2018. She's since launched her own podcast and appeared in dozens of interviews, proving demand for her work extends far beyond the classroom. 🔭 The big picture: Santos' core belief is that you can't optimize your way to happiness — but there are steps you can take to see your emotions and your life in new ways. She notes that Americans are uniquely compelled to find silver linings, even in grief, in ways other cultures simply aren't. For Santos, happiness has two parts: how you feel and how you think your life is going. Chasing "good vibes only" won't get you there. "Happiness isn't about getting rid of your negative emotions. That's toxic positivity," she told The New York Times' Lulu Garcia-Navarro in a recent appearance on "The Interview" podcast. Instead, "you have a sense of meaning. You have a sense of purpose. It feels good to be you because of how you think it's going." Zoom in: For students glued to screens instead of talking to each other, Santos has a reframe: Negative emotions are signals, not failures. Loneliness means: Seek connection. Overwhelm means: You've taken on too much. 📱 Between the lines: Santos argues technology, including AI, will make isolation worse. The desire to connect with a real person — over a flattering, always-available chatbot — will only get harder to sustain. As she puts it, technological advancement has always made us less social: "We go to the ATM now — we don't have to talk to a teller. We don't go to a record store and talk with people about records to get our music — we just have an algorithm deliver it to us." 💡 More takeaways from Santos' research: Social connection is the clearest driver of happiness. When small talk presents itself, take it. Time famine is real, but it's also a perception problem. We have more free time than humans did even 20 years ago, but it's fragmented into "time confetti" that we fill with scrolling instead of connection. Solo time isn't automatically bad. Contemplation and solitude can have real value. The problem is the self-judgment that creeps in when we think we should be connecting instead. 💭 Natalie's thought bubble: I interviewed Santos back in 2019 — which feels like ancient history after living through the pandemic. Her advice is even more essential now. 🎧 Watch Santos on "The Interview" ... Listen to her podcast "The Happiness Lab."

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🤖 Exclusive: College AI use spikes

Illustration: Maura Kearns/Axios

The share of business students regularly using AI — more than 10 times a week — has increased from 6.2% to 29% over the past three years, Axios' Megan Morrone writes from new research by American University's Kogod School of Business. Why it matters: Students increasingly see AI as a critical job skill but want more guidance on using it responsibly. Keep reading.

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At colleges, the AI boom means everyone wants to dabble in computer science Hiring has cooled for entry-level software developers — work increasingly done by AI agents — and college enrollment in computer science programs has been declining. Yet colleges recognize that new graduates — regardless of their field — are facing questions about their AI skills from potential employers. Read more.

Why this matters: Many professors are finding themselves busier than ever teaching students from a range of majors about artificial intelligence. Schools like VCU are standing up AI minors targeting students outside computer science. There’s a new AI graduation requirement at Purdue University. In freshman writing classes, Harvard University is teaching students how large language models work.    “In the same way that everybody needs some degree of math, reading and writing, I think everybody needs a degree of AI literacy,” said Peter Stone, the chair of computer science at the University of Texas at Austin.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ A flex in corporate America, AI ‘tokenmaxxing’ fades as workplaces look to cut tech spending Chinese AI models gain ground as they make inroads in the US

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🚀 1 for the road: Endowments take off

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios The University of North Carolina's endowment returns are up over 30% this year thanks in part to an early bet on SpaceX, Bloomberg reports. The school's endowment management company invested in SpaceX through venture capital over 15 years ago. Now it's seeing big returns after the company went public last month. 💰 Bloomberg reports that the investment "has helped make UNC's endowment one of the best-performing in the U.S., but it's also emblematic of how a select group of U.S. universities have profited from a surge in value from early-stage investments." Some later SpaceX investors haven't fared as well: Shares are trading at about $130 early this afternoon, down from the $135 IPO price. Gift link.

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📚 1 fun thing: Dorm decor

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios. Stock: Getty Images

College dorms are becoming customized, social-media-ready micro-apartments, Axios' Josephine Walker writes. Why it matters: Dorm rooms are tiny. The decor economy is not. 💵 The "designer dorm" industry — which includes decked-out rooms worth thousands — has grown alongside viral TikTok dorm tours and hauls. Parents are also trying to make their child's transition to college easier. 🥊 Reality check: The market looks wildly different depending on which side of the Mason-Dixon line your campus sits. ⭐ In SEC country, dorm rooms are often personalized with monograms and items reflecting school spirit. 🚚 In the Northeast, dorm design can be couture, but the biggest luxury is having someone else wrestle with a U-Haul on a cramped city street. Go deeper.

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New college doubts

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Stock: Getty Images

College was once sold as a ticket to the American dream. But students today are taking a tougher look at the college tradeoff: burdensome debt and no guarantee of a dream career — or employment at all, as AI threatens the jobs that the degrees were meant to unlock, Axios' Avery Lotz reports. "People didn't ask whether college mattered 20 years ago," says Courtney Brown, VP of impact and planning at Lumina Foundation. Now, they're asking: "Are today's students going to be prepared for tomorrow's jobs? Is it really helping them out?" 📉 By the numbers: Confidence in higher education has slipped this year among both parties and all levels of educational attainment, according to Gallup. Job market fears are also surging: Gallup found last year that just 19% of those with a college degree or more said it was a good time to find a quality job at the end of 2025, compared to 35% of those without one. But there's a paradox: Even as Americans sour on higher education, they keep sending their kids to campus. "There is still massive pressure on them from their high schools, the educators at their schools, their parents, their peers, and just the broader culture to still go to college," says The Up & Up founder and Gen Z researcher Rachel Janfaza. Today's doubts fall into three buckets — in students' own words: 💵 Affordability: "I didn't want to take out loans, and I didn't want to put my family through that stress of trying to fund it." —Gabriel Sheahan, a 24-year-old studying welding and fabrication at Lincoln Technical Institute, a trade school in New Jersey. 🏛️ Getting your money's worth: "How does it make sense that you're giving me this deadline to have my degree finished, and I can't even get the classes that I want? ... It feels ... like a rat race." —Rachel Sukkar, a 19-year-old philosophy major at UNC Chapel Hill. 🎓 Outcomes: "There's just so much volatility, and you can't guarantee the same amount of success that you could 20 years ago with a college degree now." —Moksha Agrawal, a 17-year-old incoming high school senior.

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💰 Charted: Alumni earnings premium

Data: Economic Policy Institute. Chart: Erin Davis/Axios Visuals The boost that college graduates get in pay over those who don't go to college is huge — but it's been declining a bit in recent years, Axios Markets co-author Emily Peck writes. Last year, the average college graduate earned 55.2% more than the typical high school grad, per Labor Department data analyzed by the progressive Economic Policy Institute. That's down from a peak of more than 60% a decade ago.

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🔄 Colleges race to be AI-forward

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Stock: Getty Images

AI is forcing colleges to rethink what students need to learn — and what a degree should prepare them to do, Axios' Megan Morrone and Herb Scribner write. Why it matters: Employers increasingly expect new graduates to arrive with AI fluency, even as colleges are still figuring out how to teach it. 💻 Split screen: This year's graduating high school seniors have had access to ChatGPT since freshman year, while this year's graduating college students booed mentions of AI at commencement. As students' command of AI has improved, colleges have revisited whether using it should always count as cheating. "Now anyone can get that expertise in a minute," OpenAI's VP for education, Leah Belsky, tells Axios. Higher education "is more coaching, mentoring, guiding students" through prompts and analyzing outputs, she says. 📈 The pressure is growing: The number of employers that expect entry-level workers to be AI-competent has nearly tripled since last fall, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers. 🦾 Zoom out: Schools are racing to catch up. American, Purdue and Miami University in Ohio have launched AI-forward initiatives. 🎟️ Another route: Short-term certificate programs are becoming a faster, cheaper way to build AI skills — and a way for universities to reach a broader pool of students, Bloomberg reports (gift link). In 2022, just 2% of the professional certificate market focused on AI. This year, short-term AI training programs take up nearly a third. 📚 What students are saying: UC Davis student Burton Baecker told Axios he added finance to his accounting studies after seeing how quickly AI could perform accounting tasks. What to watch: As AI tools take on more entry-level tasks, employers are raising the bar for young workers. New graduates are now expected to manage projects and AI agents, conduct deeper research, present findings and defend their work, Casey Evans, interim dean at American University's Kogod School of Business, tells Axios.

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✈️ America's global student edge is slipping

Data: Open Doors, IIE. Chart: Erin Davis/Axios Visuals America is losing one of its quietest superpowers: its ability to attract the world's most ambitious students, who also provide a crucial revenue stream for universities, Axios' Russell Contreras reports. By the numbers: There was a 17% drop in new international student enrollment for fall 2025, recent survey findings by the Association of International Educators reveal. This translates to over $1.1 billion in lost revenue for the U.S. economy and nearly 23,000 fewer jobs. 🌎 Between the lines: The plunge isn't just about strict immigration policies or visa backlogs from the Trump administration. A broader, unwelcoming national climate is deterring students. That reputation is prompting foreign talent to explore other options before they even apply here, Andrew Gillen, a research fellow at the Cato Institute, tells Axios. He compares turning away global talent to banning left-handed people from school: "You're sort of closing off access to whatever they would have been able to accomplish."

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🚪 Sorry, we're closed

Data: BestColleges. Map: Erin Davis/Axios Visuals The pandemic accelerated a higher-ed shakeout that's still forcing colleges to close, merge or reinvent themselves. Since March 2020, at least 49 nonprofit colleges have closed or announced closures. Forty others have merged — affecting more than 53,000 students, according to the higher-ed site BestColleges. Historically, fewer than half of students reenroll elsewhere.

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🚫 Tech's pitch to skip college

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Stock: Getty Images

Some of the tech industry's most influential CEOs are challenging the four-year degree as the default path for elite talent — and building alternatives to it, Axios' Herb Scribner writes. Palantir created the Meritocracy Fellowship, which urges high school grads to "skip the debt" and "skip the indoctrination" in favor of a "Palantir degree." Peter Thiel founded the two-year Thiel Fellowship, where participants skip or leave college.

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Speedy degrees

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Stock: Getty Images

Virginia and Ohio are developing 90-credit bachelor's degrees that students could finish in three years — joining a fast-growing national effort to rethink how long college should take. The two states hope to launch pilot programs in 2028, Axios Richmond's Karri Peifer reports. 💰 Colleges struggling to fill seats see the programs as a way to attract students put off by the cost and length of a traditional degree.

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3-year college degrees grow more popular in the US, saving time and cash. But critics aren’t sold Condensed programs have exploded in popularity. As of this spring, 26 U.S. states have a college that offers at least one reduced-credit, three-year bachelor’s, according to the nonprofit research group RAND. Read more.

Why this matters: Advocates say these programs are a solution to the college affordability crisis and a godsend for non-traditional students. Critics, however, worry that they’ll narrow too much what students learn, confuse employers, limit graduate school options and create headaches in fields that require state licenses.   For decades, colleges have offered accelerated programs that let students finish faster, often by forgoing long summer breaks, maximizing transfer credits and condensing semester-long courses into shorter, five- to 10-week terms. But those programs maintained the same course load, measured as credits. The new programs let students finish faster by completing as few as 90 credit hours. That shaves a year off the typical 120-hour bachelor’s degree.

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