Karen Weaver says Rutgers’ mounting athletics deficit since joining the Big Ten illustrates the steep financial pressures universities face when trying to compete in top-tier athletic conferences, where rising spending on facilities, coaching salaries, and program expansion often outpaces revenue growth.
Karen Weaver sits down with higher-ed governance experts Raquel Rall of UC Riverside and Penn GSE's own Peter Eckel to unpack fiduciary duty, board education, and how to make mission-driven decisions in college athletics amid NIL, revenue sharing, realignment, and rising financial risk.
A new series spotlighting the unique offerings and pedagogy of Penn GSE courses kicks off with a spotlight on Julie Wollman’s class on leadership in higher education.
We gathered four Penn GSE alumni, now serving as college presidents, to discuss the current state of higher education, the evolving demands of academic leadership, and how the presidency is a calling, not just a career.
On Inside Higher Ed’s The Key podcast, Robert Zemsky says that three-year bachelor’s degrees could help colleges respond to declining student demand by offering a more efficient model.
Robert Zemsky says that momentum behind three-year bachelor’s degrees is growing as more states and colleges explore accelerated degree options to lower costs, improve affordability, and help students enter the workforce sooner, reflecting broader shifts in higher education models.
In The Boston Globe, Robert Zemsky says that Massachusetts’ move to allow colleges to propose three-year bachelor’s programs reflects a broader shift in higher education toward more affordable and efficient degree options that help students enter the workforce sooner while reducing the overall cost of earning a degree.
Now that student-athletes are eligible for direct payments from some schools, as well as lucrative endorsement deals, is the age of the amateur over? How will colleges and universities navigate this new normal and the inequalities inherent in this revenue-sharing era?
Sigal Ben-Porath discusses the critical role of higher education in defending free speech and fostering democratic engagement, arguing that colleges must model open dialogue and civic responsibility if they are to prepare students to sustain democratic norms in an era of polarization.
Ben-Porath co-authored a piece with faculty from Wharton and Penn Carey Law in the Guardian about how such lists have historically been a prelude to persecution and could set a precedent for broader government overreach into personal data and academic freedom.
He writes in the Philadelphia Inquirer that such lists are an affront to civil liberties and a reminder of dark chapters in history when such inquiries were used to marginalize and persecute Jewish communities.
Charlotte Jacobs, Robert Zemsky, and Jonathan Zimmerman appeared on “The Teacher’s Forum,” “College Knowledge,” and “The Re-Educated Podcast,” respectively, to discuss some of the biggest issues in education.
Alan Ruby says that Chinese universities are climbing global rankings while many U.S. institutions slip, reflecting broader shifts in investment, research capacity, and international engagement that are reshaping the global higher education landscape.
In The Chronicle of Higher Education, Karen Weaver says that colleges are increasingly using bowl-game advertising to highlight institutional impact and public value, leveraging the large sports audience to shift the narrative about higher education beyond athletics to community and research contributions.
Karen Weaver says that as Pennsylvania schools, including Temple, Villanova, and Penn State, begin directly paying athletes under new revenue-sharing rules following federal class-action settlements, questions are emerging about how institutions will fund payments and whether equity concerns could prompt future legal challenges.
Janine Remillard highlights efforts to narrow the gender gap in STEM education, noting that teachers are encouraged to engage more female students in STEM through hands-on activities, practical lessons, and extracurricular programs to boost confidence and support long-term participation in science and math fields.
Karen Weaver says that the rise of the transfer portal is reshaping college sports as athletes like Luke Baklenko make strategic decisions about their careers, weighing playing opportunities, development, and long-term goals.
Karen Weaver says that with up to 25 Michigan football players considering opting out of their bowl game and the transfer portal looming, athletes are acting like rational economic agents, weighing their human capital and future earning potential amid shifting market dynamics in college sports.
Student-athletes are cashing in on their name, image, and likeness like never before—creating ripple effects across campuses nationwide. At Penn GSE’s recent Homecoming panel, alumni experts unpacked this billion-dollar shift.
In The New Jersey Herald, Matt Hartley says that smaller universities routinely undergo structural reorganizations and that Montclair State’s centralization will likely lead to the creation of new administrative roles to guide decision-making.
In the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Robert Zemsky says that the three-year college model offers a more efficient alternative to traditional four-year programs, reducing academic waste by at least a quarter while maintaining educational quality.
In Memecita, Karen Weaver says that the NIL landscape is rapidly maturing, with collectives becoming more sophisticated, athletes gaining a clearer understanding of their market value, and colleges developing policies to support responsible NIL activity.
Karen Weaver says that other athletic conferences are likely to follow in the footsteps of the Big Ten, assuming they can successfully navigate a maze of thorny legal and political concerns.
Laura Perna says the net-price calculators that universities use when establishing the cost of attendance for students are not standardized and often misleading.
Karen Weaver says that new promotional strategies focused on impact and community from colleges are a great response to recent threats to college enrollment.
The vice provost for faculty and the GSE Centennial Presidential Professor of Education joins 24 scholars from across the country in the first class of fellows of the Association for the Study of Higher Education.
Vivian Gadsden has been appointed the vice president of the National Academy of Education. Dr. Gadsden co-directs the Penn Early Childhood and Family Research Center.
Dean Strunk says that developing strong partnerships is person-dependent and takes time to build trust and repair past areas that may be lacking in trust.
Laura Perna says that East Coast schools are more heavily featured among the best colleges in the country because many institutions in that part of the country were established long ago. She also mentioned population density as a factor leading to more schools on the East Coast.
Recent Global Higher Education Management program alumni Sarah Bauman-Kaye and Sasha Lussaint wrote a piece for "University World News" as a part of their capstone project, based on interviews conducted with Chinese high school students bound for undergraduate study in North America this fall.
Rapelang Rabana and Joe Wolf, Dr. Cathy N. Davidson, and Dr. Frederic Bertley are recognized for their pioneering contributions that have advanced learning opportunities and impacted countless lives.
Jonathan Zimmerman says that right-wing students are as eager as their left-leaning peers to censor allegedly ’problematic’ speech, and that And students across the political spectrum are biting their tongues, lest they incur the wrath of their opponents.
The program’s faculty includes a cadre of sought-after leaders in the field who live around the globe—from South Africa to the U.K.—and are able to come together in one classroom, thanks to technology.
Robert Zemsky says that much of the curriculum in a 4-year college model is unnecessary and is pushing for the normalization of a 3-year college degree.
John Silvanus Wilson Jr., a nationally recognized leader in higher education and former president of Morehouse College, has been appointed the next executive director of the McGraw Center for Educational Leadership at Penn GSE.
Julie Wollman says that low enrollment becomes a difficult calculus for higher education administrators who believe the major is important to offer but can't justify high overhead for professors to teach a very small number of students.
Robert Zemsky discusses the "wild" success of the College-in-3 movement, as well as some of the challenges it still faces, including resistance from some more traditional fields of study.
Penn GSE's Global Higher Education Management program is preparing the next generation of university leaders to thrive in a rapidly changing, interconnected world.
Penn GSE professors and programs are engaged in more than 150 international partnerships and projects in more than 60 countries around the globe. The goal? To change the world through education.
Jonathan Zimmerman says large research universities are the big losers in the Trump administration's endowment tax hike and questions why an institution like Penn should pay more than smaller elite colleges and universities.
