Felecia Commodore: Right. I wonder sometimes if we don’t engage in some of these efforts. To kind of pat ourselves on the back or have a tick mark off, off our programming list for the, for the year, right? And if we were to step back and maybe rethink, how we’re pushing this, say that we’re doing this thing because it’s good to do and civic engagement, and really think about it as like tying it to success outcomes, tying it to things that, that matter that we measure, right?

Or even just reframing it in ways that make it less vulnerable to attack. And I think to Crystal’s point, that means we have to be more proactive than reactive. We really have to get ahead of the messaging that that. Outside parties will frame around our efforts as institutions and really take hold of our own stories and our own efforts and how we’re framing them.

Heather Shea: get it started. Okay. All right. Welcome to Student Affairs Now, the Online Learning Community for Student Affairs Educators. I’m your host, Heather Shea. It’s February, 2026, and this week we’re returning to our monthly current campus context series. This episode was recorded at 5:10 PM Eastern Time on Monday, February 23rd.

On last month’s episode, we discussed where we are one month into the new administration, so we’re returning this month with new headlines. In just the past few weeks, the Department of Education has warned institutions about the use of student voting data, raising questions about participation in the national study of learning, voting and engagement.

The new Save Act proposals could further reshape voting access nationwide. And at the same time, the Justice Department has escalated legal action involving Harvard’s admissions records signaling continued federal scrutiny of institutional autonomy. And yet, recently, as of last week, the week before, Congress preserved core higher education funding in its most recent appropriations package, even as the Department of Ed advanced proposed graduate loan limits that could significantly reshape access to advanced degrees.

So we’re exploring a number of different tensions this month. Stable funding, but expanded regulation, preserved aid, but narrowing access. Institutional caution in a climate of federal oversight. So I’m really excited to welcome back our two correspondents who will help us make sense of this moment from different but deeply connected vantage points.

Welcome back Dr. Felecia Commodore and Dr. Crystal Garcia. Thanks so much for being here. Let’s dive in. So the first topic we’re gonna get to is really about this concept of federal power, civic engagement campus belonging. And so I think this piece about student voting data has made me really consider about, what kinds of data are the, is the federal government concerned about, and how does this change our impact on civic engagement broadly?

And that tide or coupled to these other national voting proposals like the Save act could really change the way and tighten voting requirements. Let’s take all of these things together. Less like isolated headlines, but more like a broader context over data authority and boundaries.

So first I just wanna start with what is this data study? What is Nsolve national study on Leader? What did we say it was? Learning, voting and engagement. And when you look at all of these things together, what patterns do you see? Oh, crystal, do you wanna kick us off?

Crystal Garcia: Yeah. So first, when we think about and solve the whole idea around this is that it’s nonpartisan.

Let’s just start with that. Yeah.

That it’s not intended to be a politically influential tool in the sense of swaying votes one way or another. So much as understanding the data around voter participation, civic engagement, and how, what campus communities look like in those terms.

And so as the administration has gone after this data set, it’s been really interesting to unpack and read the rationale. Their statement in and of its. Self does not specifically name what personal information was being made available. So they claim that there were ferpa violations in the release of these data and the usage of these data.

But they say that in this very broad sense of FERPA violations as opposed to saying like students’ names or students’ addresses or some specific form of data that had been released. So again, they don’t name that They simply say student, I identify identifiable information has been shared. And then they also talk about the fact that it was shared with political entities, but it doesn’t actually define what that means or name what political entities were at the res receiving end of this data.

And so for me, call me, skeptical of the arguments that this administration tends to make in relation to it higher education, but just it raises red flags around the legitimacy of their claims, against ends solve in its usage. But whenever we contextualize that more broadly with what’s happening with this administration and really with conservative movements more broadly across the country.

The Trump administration and the Republican Party as a whole have really emphasized these broad calls to expanding civic education, emphasizing the importance of patriotism, et cetera. While at the same time targeting this tool, for example, that is intended to promote voting and civic engagement.

And then while also enacting measures like the save act, which makes it more people more difficult for people to vote, ultimately, right? Because you have to have multiple forms of identification to prove your citizenship. And for people who, have a different name now than they did at birth on their birth certificate, that will then require a passport, et cetera.

So again, making it more difficult for people to vote ultimately, and what’s more patriotic than voting in a democracy. And whenever we think about institutions and their usage of this data, they’ve used it to encourage voting, to encourage civic participation. To engage their campus communities in something that is core to our democracy. So then attacking it really sends a different message, right? And it again, for me, raises red flags around not only why it’s being attacked, but then I question, then what forms of civic education are really being called for here?

And when we talk about voting and increasing voting, participation, are we really just talking about voting for a particular party or for particular ideologies as opposed to voting more expansively? And yeah, I have concerns about how this is gonna affect. Campuses more broadly in terms of how they will engage in dialogue around civic engagement.

I’m worried that it might send a chilling effect across college campuses of saying, we just shouldn’t talk about it at all. It’s a slippery slope. We might be attacked for it. This dataset has been attacked and now let’s just shut down all conversations about voting, about civic engagement.

And so then, that could have a ripple effect to students and the ways that they understand, the ways that they engage in civic participation which we know is so important. So yeah, I just, I continue to ask this question that if conversations are being stifled within college campuses what will that look like for our future more broadly within our society moving forward?

Heather Shea: Yeah. Yeah. And I know on my campus, and we have a massive voter registration drive every year and it, they’ve, they take it very seriously. In fact, it’s like a huge source of pride when we beat our neighbors down the road at having more students registered. Like there, there’s a competition moment and that, and so it’s sad that this particular tool, because, and my understanding is also aren’t colleges and universities required to assist in helping college students get voter, get their voting records updated so that they can vote in the right locations and the place where they can make a difference.

It seems like it’s just really contrary to what I would think they would want. More voting versus less. But then you add that partisan piece, and I think you’re absolutely right. Felecia how is this kind of square for you as far as all of these other actions, whether it’s the increased scrutiny again on Harvard, which seems to be con like this constant and Harvard’s in the news again and the Save Act and all of these other kind of federal authority infringing upon institutional autonomy again.

Felecia Commodore: Yeah, I think and I think Crystal bring brought this up and I’ll try to expand upon it. I think when we think of these things in isolated ways, they don’t seem, they seem altruistic or could lean that way, but I think if we think about these things within a larger ecosystem of what has been happening, then it’s what, when these things become concerning.

I think generally speaking, there is a heightened, from my perspective, there’s a heightened concern with surveillance. Happening right now in our society, in American society. And anything that could possibly open up people to having their privacy violated, I think is of concern. And I think things that we wouldn’t have thought about before as being tools of surveillance are now we are considering.

So because we’ve never really had administrations that have been calling for voter rolls from states, and it’s had us thinking about certain things in ways I don’t know that we always have, or at least the majority of folks have not thought about it. And so I think when we think about if we think about data and there’s, I can’t remember the scholar, the book, the.

There’s a concept that data will be the new currency. And I think when we think about that and think about how much data institutions collect, about its students, about its faculty, about its staff I think we can then understand some things about why an administration or why any group would want to get data from an institution.

There’s so much that we collect. The question again becomes what do they want to do with that data? I also think if we think pull, zoom out, I like to take historical context sometimes. I think so have to think about when we look historically. Who or what age group or what group of people were the people who pushed for expanding voter rights?

Who pushed for the expansion of civil rights. These are college age students often, and they were often college students involved. So I think there’s also an element we have to think here about the trends of college students being able to really push certain movements in American society.

And so if we have more information about those students, their thoughts, what they do, their patterns, what can that information tell us about how things may or may not be moving. That we can’t necessarily see yet. And we won’t know until they actually, vote or move or do things like that.

Then you pair this with even all these other things that are happening. You have the push from turning point USA to have more campus student groups. You have states who are pushing for this syllabi to show or prove that they have an American centric or America first push or base in their courses.

The patriotism that Crystal talked about, you also see that you’re seeing states that have more restrictive voter laws that are happening. You have institutions where campuses are trying to fight to get polling places. On their campuses so students can vote and states blocking campuses from having polling places on their campus.

North Carolina a and t has been making, having that fight for the last couple of years the largest HBCU in the state of North Carolina. And we start putting all this stuff together and then saying, we want data on student voters. I think there becomes a question is what is the currency of that data?

What is it that we want to do with that? I think also as researchers, that’s always gonna be our question. What are we collecting this for? What are we using this for? So I think, I don’t have any concrete answers, but I think there has to be some questions about how these things are connected if they’re connected.

And then what does that mean for not only our students’ privacy. But also what does it mean for institutions who become these intermediaries between state government and these students and their families, right? Who are they? Who do we begin to believe they’re there to protect or who are, who is their fiduciary duty to?

And you have, we’ve seen when Governor Youngin’s, attorney General said boards of trustees, the state institutions, fiduciary duties to the state, not to the institution. And then you have other folks who feel like you need to be concerned about the people in this campus community and this campus.

And so I think we’re at a quandary of what that means in terms of data we share.

Heather Shea: I’m also thinking about this at the point of our recording last month we had just learned that the Department of Education had abandoned the lawsuit that they had brought against institutions about DEI, right?

So that whole dear colleague letter they had just ceased to pursue it further. And I’m thinking about the folks who work in student affairs and all of the whether it was anticipatory compliance or just silently, quietly scaling back so as to not be in the bullseye or in the public eye.

And I’m thinking about this re regarding voter engagement, right? So if if our campuses that have been, and often in student affairs units really pushing voter registration opening polling places on campus to make voting easier for students. Who loses in that? I think the answer is obvious, right?

Our students lose, and those of us who care about student voice and getting, them to feel a part of this sense of community. But I’d love to hear if you all have thoughts on like how those of us who work in student affairs can push against that kind of quiet silencing and closing and maybe moving towards this place we’re it’s going to not do it because that’s the easier route.

How do we get that courage to keep going?

Crystal Garcia: I can start. I Heather, I dunno.

Heather Shea: I know. I put

Crystal Garcia: out a

Heather Shea: question like, I dunno.

Crystal Garcia: Yeah. For me, I can tell you what I want, hold myself accountable to doing and that is. Leveraging collectives that I am a part of within my campus space to ask our institutional leaders some of those hard questions.

And to sometimes be vulnerable and going and speaking at our Board of Regents meetings. And again going straight to the source, right of asking what is the accountability here? Are we how are we going to continue to serve students in the way that they deserve to be served within our campus spaces, given the reactionary responses that my institution so many institutions have had so far.

But not everybody feels comfortable to do that. Not everybody is safe to do that. And so I think it’s also asking the question of like, how are we showing up for students? How are we showing up for our colleagues within the spaces that we have and within the reach that we have that we’re. We have available to us.

And that might just be, I’m still here. I’m telling my students that I’m here. I care for you. I affirm you like I, I am a resource to you in ways that I can be. And then also I think that we have to also think about the field as a collective.

Heather Shea: Yeah.

Crystal Garcia: And really push our, professional associations, our colleagues more broadly to say, what are we doing together?

Also to speak up, to push back and to fight for something more, something better moving forward. We’ve been very reactionary so far. I would like to think that we could stop doing that. But it will take collective effort on that front. Just initial thoughts. Yeah.

Felecia Commodore: Yeah, I would. I think those are all great.

And the two things I would add, one is just messaging, right? I think I want, when I think about the concept of scaling back on voter engagement efforts, the question for me becomes, are we, do we need to scale back on voter engagement efforts or do we need to reframe what the, and re-message what our voter engagement efforts are?

I wonder sometimes if we don’t engage in some of these efforts. To pat ourselves on the back or have a tick mark off our programming list for the year, right? And if we were to step back and maybe rethink how we’re pushing this, say that we’re doing this thing because it’s good to do and civic engagement and really think about it as tying it to success outcomes, tying it to things that, that matter that we measure, right?

Or even just reframing it in ways that make it less vulnerable to attack. And I think to Crystal’s point, that means we have to be more proactive than reactive. We really have to get ahead of the messaging that. Outside parties will frame around our efforts as institutions and really take hold of our own stories and our own efforts and how we’re framing them.

The second thing I’ll say is that I sometimes think institutions think they have to be the light on the hill.

Heather Shea: Yeah.

Felecia Commodore: That’s

Heather Shea: true.

Felecia Commodore: And I don’t know that anyone asks them to do that. And so I say that to say is that there’s an opportunity here to partner with community groups, to, with community organizations with who are already doing this work as a way to and I’m not saying put labor off onto the community but we can support community partners in doing the work in a way that we don’t become the central identity around voter engagement work. There are plenty of organizations and groups in our communities that are doing this work already. Thinking about how we can strategically partner with those organizations and strategically connect our students with those organizations.

So that we can say we’re engaging in community partnership,

Heather Shea: right? Yeah.

Felecia Commodore: And then there the, maybe the activity might be voter engagement, but we don’t have to always be the lead. We don’t always have to be the center of, sometimes we can be the support and we can help provide infrastructure. And so I think thinking about that, how do we partner with our communities more and really thinking about that instead of thinking we have to, we know how to do everything best.

Heather Shea: Yeah. Yeah. And I think both of you have really some good, thoughts and just thinking about the complexities of this and the kind of what to make of it in this moment. And then how do we think, broader, longer term. I know for me just to switch topics a bit to this kind of funding stability that has recently occurred.

And part of it was I don’t know that we were necessarily surprised. Maybe I was actually that Congress did its job, but and actually funded the programs as they said they would. Appropriations or Congress’s responsibility. For the next six months to know that programs like trio that I oversee one of the trio support, student support services offices on our campus, thinking about that stability, that’s really critical.

Being excited about level funding is, also ironic ’cause like of course we all need more money, but to just have those be level funded is really significant. Felecia, I’d love to hear you think a little bit about like, how are you thinking about this funding stability, how do you think about that in contrast with some of the other whether it’s the, as we’ve discussed, the more narrowing definition of professional degrees and graduate loan caps and decreasing access, but also, providing this one thing that we can hold onto in the moment.

So love to hear your thoughts on that.

Felecia Commodore: Yeah, I’ve had a couple of different thoughts around this. I’ll say from the start with something positive I guess is that it is glad to see that something in our government is working. And that, there had always been the argument that at the end of the day, appropriations and the budget come down to the Congress.

And so though we may not have gotten increased funding in areas where we probably need it there were areas that at least we could, like you say, get level, hopefully get level funding. Or if there was cutbacks that they weren’t as drastic as first proposed. It’s a small, I don’t know if it’s a win, but at least it’s a neutralization in some it’s not, the damage isn’t as bad.

It is what I’ll say. It’s still bad. So the but I think the other element here is the two things of the changing of the professional degrees and how much money you can take out based on that for financial aid or federal loans. And then I would also say. For the areas that Pell will be affected and trios will be affected, what that means for institutions.

In, in thinking about the changing of what’s professional, I think we have to look at what were the degrees that got left out and who gets those degrees.

Crystal Garcia: Yeah.

Felecia Commodore: And so when we look at that information I don’t have off top of my head, but if we think anecdotally or con contextually we find a lot of those programs have people of color, women lower income folks that are often drawn towards those jobs.

There could be a argument that will limit the access to advanced education that those communities have. I also argue that it makes them more vulnerable to predatory lending because I think what happens is we shrink what is available from the federal government for support. It makes people are still going to go to school ’cause they have the market.

The industry is gonna call for it. They’re going to have to find that money another way. This opens up a lane of opportunity for private funding. And what we have seen in the past, more predatory lending, particularly on people of color, women of color lower income folks also opens up the door for what we had started to regulate more.

And that is the predatory lending that happens at for-profit institutions. Because a lot of those degrees also happen either very high access institutions or for profits, right? And so I think that’s a, there’s a conversation there of not just it limiting access, but it increasing vulnerability to predatory lending and more debt high risk debt.

I think the thinking about the Pell and the TRIO programs, again, we think about institutions that are high access, tend to have a large percentage of students who are Pell Grant recipients and also often a large percentage of students who participate in TRIO programs. That money goes to the institution in one way or another, right?

It follows the student to the institution. So if they, we don’t have as many of those students going to college. The institutions that overwhelmingly serve them are going to in experience financial strain. And so it’s this way. And when we think about that, we’re thinking about regional publics, regional comprehensives.

We’re talking about minority serving institutions, talking about community colleges. And so when we think about it in terms of who goes to those schools

Again how we’re limiting access not only for those students go those Pell Grant, trio students, we’re also limiting access for the students who just go to that school.

Because the institution won’t have as many resources as they did before to support in students. You match that with enrollment constraints and already, and economic constraints. And we’re talking about our high access institutions really having to make some tough decisions around things such as program supports jobs and things of that nature.

And it’s not always a direct impact. Sometimes it’s the indirect impact from these different programs being having more constraints on them.

Heather Shea: Crystal, can you talk a little bit about how these new loan caps impact who can access various types of graduate programs? And also what about students who are currently in that pipeline and considering going in, they’ve already, they’ve gotten halfway through their undergraduate degree now all of a sudden that whatever they thought they were gonna go into, they may not, they may have already borrowed too much money to be able to pursue that degree.

And I don’t know there’s a question in there somewhere. What thoughts on how that impacts the larger landscape of who goes and as Crystal was, as Felecia was saying, who’s benefiting from that?

Crystal Garcia: Yeah. These changes are. Incredibly disheartening. Especially, I think about myself. I’m a first generation college student. I didn’t even think that I, whenever I started my college journey that I would be able to start at like a university. I didn’t understand the way that financial aid work.

I didn’t know what opportunities I would have available to me. And luckily receive some education around that. But if it weren’t for student loans, if it weren’t for Pell Grants, if it weren’t for these assistance programs that are incredibly crucial to, folks pursuing higher education for so many individuals, like it was for me I might not be here if these caps existed at that time.

I don’t know what that would’ve even looked like for me or considering my possibilities forward because I, whenever I. Look at these, which by the way, speaking of Harvard, the funny thing is whenever I looked up again, like a reminder on each of the caps, Harvard’s financial aid office was like one of the first links that popped up.

And look, they have a great like snapshot available for students, so kudos to them. Harvard, me being relevant but. Of course we know grad plus loans are gonna be phased out. We have the new grad unsubsidized direct loan limits. So there’s the professional programs, of course, $50,000 a year, but $200,000 lifetime borrowing limit.

Other grad programs, 20,500 a year or a hundred thousand dollars lifetime borrowing limit. And if you think about it in that way undergrad loans technically other than parent plus loans that are

Facing a different cap, those are not being changed.

Heather Shea: Okay.

Crystal Garcia: But undergrad loans count towards your lifetime limit.

Heather Shea: Yeah.

Crystal Garcia: And a hundred thousand dollars might sound like a lot, but even for someone that’s pur, like pursuing a PhD, if they go straight from undergrad to master’s program to their PhD program, that’s easily a tenure process.

Heather Shea: Yeah.

Crystal Garcia: And if you think about it in that way, $10,000 a year is not much.

And so again, whenever we think about who will have access to these programs, then Felecia, I so appreciate you bringing up predatory lending processes and things like that might come up. Look, even there was a semester whenever I didn’t have my parents’ financial aid information to do my FAFSA and I had to use a credit card for my tuition one semester.

To your point, if people are set on like pursuing a degree, they’re gonna find ways. It may not help them in the ways that we know. Opportunities should be available to them. And so that is a huge concern. But then I just think about like these. Especially if we think about like law medicine, these caps are not enough.

Like they’re nowhere near enough, even for people that have some financial support from their families or otherwise to pursue these paths. Because it’s essentially unsustainable to work in these programs. In fact, most don’t allow you to have employment as you’re going through these programs. And so again, it’s gonna affect who can do what.

We’re going to see, unfortunately, less representation across particular fields where we know that we’re already hurting in terms of lacking diversity. In, in terms of lacking, again, reflections of themselves, especially whenever I think about the medical field and the lack of folks of color that are doctors and how important that is to receiving.

Correct and fair and kind and humanizing medical care. It’s extremely troubling. And then I also think about on this note of, value and how the value of education is being positioned right now. We also know that there’s a trend that’s coming, and right now it’s coming state by state, but it wants to come to the national level of defining low return degrees and then putting parameters around who can obtain those degrees and how in Nebraska we have our own bill that’s been introduced that essentially says that, state.

Financial aid funds can’t be used for the pursuit of low return degrees and so many problems around this. We know that some of the most important work that happens in our society is a low return educators, social workers. Like we know that these things are incredibly important still and are going to face challenges moving forward.

But then I, and I’m frustrated because I’m pretty sure I don’t wanna misspeak, so please look this up. But I’m pretty sure I saw the headline that said, essentially we see that this trend is coming across, but it may be Indiana that as opposed to Okay. Felecia’s nodding. So hoping I’m on the right track, that instead of just like curtailing people from pursuing those degrees, they may wholesale eliminate those degree offerings to students.

Felecia Commodore: Correct.

Crystal Garcia: Wow.

Felecia Commodore: Yeah. So Indiana right now is discussing. The possibility of using the that, I can’t think of the name, but the, how much you’ll make, pretty much if it’s a low return, that will give them justification for canceling the program at your institution at a state institution.

Heather Shea: That, that absolutely, I wasn’t aware that was happening.

And also I’m very concerned about that. So what do we know about people who are pursuing a social worker education or whatever, right? They are very likely to stay in those states and serve their communities too. And so if there’s not a program at that level within that state how are those, how does that, that not turn into a complete lack of qualified teachers, qualified social workers who are in those spaces?

Wow, that’s really concerning.

Felecia Commodore: I have and this is, I might start to sound a little tinfoil, heady. I tell students I try to avoid it, but sometimes it comes out. I think like to your point and to connect to what Crystal was saying, like not only if we actually think about this in terms of jobs.

Heather Shea: Yeah.

Felecia Commodore: Not only will it affect who has access to those jobs, it’s going to affect the number of people actually in general, right? We’re, when you think particularly, let’s take the field of Medica Medical, the medical profession.

We are creating these barriers from the loan perspective, but we’re also shrinking funding from places like NIH and NSF.

It used to create funding pathways for students. So we’re shrinking from both sides. That’s. We wanna turn into lower enrollment, right? Which we may not be able to see now, but in five to eight years, we’re gonna see we don’t have enough doctors. Yep. We’re gonna see, we don’t have enough nurses.

We already don’t have enough nurses. We are going to see that we don’t have enough social workers. And so the question for me then is is that the goal? Is the goal to create a situation where we’re so shorted in certain areas that it opens up the door for privatization on one end or the other?

Where we start to have these industries taken over or supplementing our gaps. With privately owned agencies, which can then set their own standards for things. And if we again, thinking about in concert, we’re seeing some of the pushes to around accreditation, around professional associations and their standards.

So if we think about all these things working together there’s a question there of does a shortage create a gap? Does a gap create an opportunity for private agency development, which can then set its own standards? I think the other thing we can think about too is, does a does creating these gaps from an institution side, from when we’re talking about graduate schools, creating these funding gaps, make institutions and I think we’re already seeing this a little bit.

Have to become more entrepreneurial in how they get funding, which also makes them have to entertain funding agencies. My organizations, donors that maybe in the past they wouldn’t have entertained but they might now. And so will we look up and have the and I’m being facetious, but not, but will we look up and have the, Kardashian medical centers at institutions across the country?

Will we, if we look back at the beginning of high higher education, when we start to see a lot of growth, it was industrial philanthropists who saw a benefit from connecting their industry and donating a lot of money and building institutions to make a labor force. And the rockefella and all of these folks, and I just, I think I, I’ve already seen some institutions with these named Colleges of Education that are not education folks. They’re like Hyundai or, so it’s like it’s opening up for venture capitalists. And I’m not saying that they’re bad, that’s not what I’m saying. But what I am saying is I don’t know that we were looking towards the business sector, the corporate sector to as heavy to, to create or be our main funding source so we could get students.

And I think that’s going to start to change if we keep ma keep making more restrictions on federal support of students going to college. It’s gonna make institutions have to think of some new ways to get money.

Heather Shea: Yeah, I think this is a super fascinating topic and I’ve thought about it with regard to gambling apps on campus.

And the way that gambling is funding sports and the way that sports is re now reliant on this, on these bet MGM or whatever kind of gambling app. And that’s a really fascinating and concerning problematic interconnection. And especially as a parent of an 18-year-old who’s about to go to college and is really into sports, I’m like, can you please never do this?

But I think you’re right. I think there’s this belief that our institutions have existed for the public good versus like only for the private benefit. But now you’re. Blowing that up to this much larger private industrial, educational industrial complex that relies upon the robber barons of before to build and sustain the institutions.

Which then it’s like, what is the purpose then? Is it just about creating a workforce that can staff, AI data centers, right? I, we could talk all about who and how are our institutions going to be responding in this time? I wanna say that, oh yeah, go ahead. Go

Felecia Commodore: ahead. I just wanna add this real quickly.

I know I tend to be the one that gabs, Yap. But I

Heather Shea: love it.

Felecia Commodore: But I do think so I just wanna say, I think there can, and history has shown us right, there can be a positive fact.

Heather Shea: Sure

Felecia Commodore: of investment in higher education by the private sector. The question just becomes how do institutions and policy influencers, how do they make that determination?

How do they engage in that discernment of what is gonna have a positive impact? And what could possibly have a negative impact?

Heather Shea: Yeah.

Felecia Commodore: So I don’t wanna, I want my philanthropy friends to be like, Hey, wait a minute. But and so I think, and I think that’s just, I don’t know what the metrics for that are, but I think that’s what’s gonna start to come down to is how do we discern who we partner with.

When it comes to finances.

Heather Shea: Let’s I wanna put a pin in that topic because I do think it’s gonna be one of the things that we’re gonna kind continue to come back to as we think about what are the factors and forces shaping the future of higher education. But moving towards like kind of some final reflections and just what do you all see on the horizon?

Are there some signals that you’re watching closely or concerned about whether they’re legislative, regulatory policy legal. Where do we see higher ed going? What is it, what is the next thing that we’re gonna be discussing? And then is there anything that you would see as stabilizing in this moment?

Are we still gonna see volatile volatility as we go into the 2026 election cycle? Because I think that’s the next marker that I am tracking. And then anything you wanna share with our audience about how you’re staying grounded in purpose and kind of reflecting on the complexity, but, this work still really matters.

Crystals all, do you wanna kick us off with some final reflections?

Crystal Garcia: Yeah. And it, it actually is connected to this previous conversation, so makes sense.

Heather Shea: Yeah.

Crystal Garcia: As we’re talking about the ways that financial aid is being leveraged. To limit access and potentially limit access more forward in the future.

I also am thinking about, this just came out a few days ago in inside higher ed, where 31 of 45 colleges that were signed up with the PhD project. Which was Yeah. Aimed at, increasing access to business, the world of business and programs and supporting students, particularly students of color.

I don’t think that they ever said exclusively, but look I’m not gonna get into the weeds of that conversation. Yeah. But 31 colleges out of 45 agreed to end it after being threatened by the, this administration of investigating them for discriminatory behaviors. And, whenever we have, often talked about.

Enforcement of threat and whether the threat alone is enough to cause folks to take action and move in the ways that the administration wants it to. Unfortunately, we continue to see that the mere threat of a lawsuit or an investigation can be enough for institutional leaders to change course around things that they previously espoused as being important and necessary to support future fields, to support students but then abandoning those values also quickly whenever they come under fire.

And so for me, I continue to have. A watchful eye around what’s happening. And again, we see some of these things that are being put in the headlines, and then there’s other things that are happening, more quietly. And I feel like every single episode I have to give some sort of tea about my own university.

And they’re doing, and another one, I think it was even in the summer that the president of our university system put into effect a modification to previous, guidance around our campuses that basically removed our ability to name and list our pronouns like within Canvas, within other spaces.

And, again, like these things just happened. It was just, it was done over the summer and the university, the campus was never notified that this was happening, not our campus. So I would assume that the other campuses went within our system, weren’t either, it’s just like this. They quietly went away and those options just disappeared with it.

And again, I am very much so looking and keeping a watchful eye over what we see that’s making the headlines that obviously causing news or making news waves. But then also the things that are happening more insidiously within our campus spaces. And I don’t know how much I’m really holding onto that is stabilizing outside of community.

We talked about this last time, and by the way, Minneapolis is still going through it right next.

People have leveraged this message that, oh, they’re retreating from this space. No, not the case. And there’s crazy levels of suppression that are happening on social media. People are posting videos of what’s happening on the ground, and their videos are like not getting any views.

They’re just completely stopping them from being put out.

Heather Shea: Wow.

Crystal Garcia: So I say all of that to say that is the destabilizing aspect, but the community is still there. Yes. And to me, that’s like a model of how we support one another and times of extreme duress. People coming together, creating mutual aid.

In whatever form that they can putting up signs that are affirming. And I think that, I know this is a continued conversation, mentioned this before in a different podcast episode, but it’s something that I keep carrying with me of thinking about hope and where my hope is coming from. And it’s not politicians necessarily, although although there are some folks that are really trying so hard.

Heather Shea: Yeah.

Crystal Garcia: Even in this climate. But for me, it’s really coming from what do those grassroots community efforts look like and how can we as a field higher education, learn from that? And enact those things within our campus spaces too.

And then I guess staying grounded in my purpose. I don’t know. I think that being in spaces like this is so helpful and staying in, in up to date with what’s going on. We were just in community, like doing an ASH conference site visit and being able to be connected to place and space and learning about the place in space and talking with colleagues who share values and who know the importance of the work that we’re doing in this moment and what’s at stake I think is really helpful.

And again, maintaining that critical hope, because the last thing that I’ll say is that I have been incredibly frustrated by like the headlines, the messaging that say essentially like the damage has been done. And then we leave it there. Like they got it, they got what they wanted, the damage has been done.

Woe is me. I think we need to grapple with what damage has been done, but we also need to position to say, okay, and what are we doing about it? Yeah. Or how are we as a collective moving forward in this moment? Because we can’t the risk is too high. The future is too important for us to resign and say it’s happened and now we’re done.

So I’m trying to also stay grounded in that hope too.

Heather Shea: Thank you. Thank you so much, Felecia.

Felecia Commodore: Yeah. I’ll start with the trends I’m trying to pay attention to or just things. And then I’ll talk about stabilization and then what’s keeping me grounded. I am really paying attention to two things.

One is state legislatures and state funding models. We just saw, I think it was in Iowa where the state legislature passed. I don’t know if it was a resolution or a bill, but ultimately saying that their institutions have to, they want their institutions to join a particular accrediting agency, the new one that was formed with the North Carolina folks and, do tri Ask governance girls.

We’ve been talking y’all about the state legislation, those board. But I think we are seeing state legislatures move and figure out ways to push institutions to do things using funding.

In ways that we, I don’t know that we’ve thought about before. And I, so I’m paying attention to how state legislatures, I think Nebraska Youth in heaven.

Nebraska’s been having some things going on. Of course, Florida, Texas, and so just this relationship between institution, public institutions, boards, and state legislatures.

And I’m paying attention to all fronts though, because I think the other thing that you are seeing is, as we talked about all of the funding whether it’s federal loans, whether it is N-I-H-N-S-F funding agency, federal agency funding, we’re seeing a few states step up and say, we’re not willing to let our state fall behind because of this.

And so we’re gonna figure out from the state standpoint how we are going to start filling in these funding gaps for our institutions. That is becoming very interesting to me because I don’t know that we’ve seen in mass. States really put a lot of money into research funding. And so I’m curious to see how this plays out.

Heather Shea: Yeah.

Felecia Commodore: Both from a sustaining institution standpoint, but also from an enrollment standpoint. And will we begin to see the forming of or the emergence of kind of higher ed super states and what will that mean for where students go, where faculty go, where people are trying to work and live.

And I’m really curious as to we already know that a lot of higher education’s relationship with the governments at the state level, but to, if we see it become in certain states, even more entrenched in a way that is supportive of growth. What does that mean for the higher ed ecosystem as we are also fighting for enrollment in space and all of these things?

So I’m really paying attention to these states that are saying, we’ll fill the funding gap, or we’ll try our best so that we can still be research engines. I’m really intrigued to see how that’s gonna play out. Of course, you all know my soapbox accreditation. It’s rolling along

Heather Shea: here.

Felecia Commodore: I actually had the opportunity to do on a webinar, the Chronicle head, if anybody wants to go watch it, I think it was recorded.

Where they had course the undersecretary of higher ed on talking about accreditation was intriguing. And then they had some accrediting agency heads also talk, it’s, it seems there’s a chilling effect going on. It was, the heads almost didn’t wanna say anything against what the undersecretary said, which was interesting.

So I’m really interested to see how this, we’re rethinking accreditation. We’re pushing for more people, this almost free market on accrediting agencies. I’m intrigued to see how it actually plays out. But I was encouraged to see people asking questions that I don’t know that I ever saw people asking about accreditation before.

There was a comment made of we don’t need to be counting books in the library that doesn’t have anything to do with student success. And then there were people who were like actually the library has a lot to do with student success. And you could tell the person wasn’t used to getting that kind of pushback.

So it’ll be interesting to see. How this kind of open market on accrediting agencies, as well as how institutions use data and how accrediting agencies will use data and how the department of ed, if they keep accreditation underneath them, will use data. I’m keeping my eye on that because I think it’s gonna really have an impact on what institutions can do, what they can count, what they can’t count, how they measure things all of that.

And I think it will eventually possibly impact curriculum. So I’m keeping eye of that. Let’s stabilizing. I don’t, like Crystal. I don’t know if we’re stabilizing. What I will say though is I think I think, and not that I want us to be comfortable with chaos.

But I do think. That higher ed has this weird thing where we always wanna go back. Like we’re always trying to get back to some thing, some idea of quote unquote normalcy. And not realizing for many folks there was never a normal this unstable system has been the norm for a lot of people in our higher ed community.

It’s just more of us are in it now.

So what I hope I don’t know if we’re hitting towards stabilization, but what I hope we are doing is being proactive and how do we invent from this disruption? How do we decide who we’re going to be from this disruption and take a hold of that as opposed to just being reactive.

And then lastly, I’ll say what’s keeping me grounded is really not just being in community, which ditto, re not retweet. What is whatever No reacts. I don’t know. Anyway I’m not over there anymore. But so what Crystal said about community, but working in the community again, just seeing people, even right now you’ve just working with students on a scholarship committee and one of my organizations I’m part of, and just being tied back into there’s a whole bunch of families and students who still have hope, who still believe in higher education and it’s promise to them.

And remembering that’s what we’re here for. And finding the balance and like fighting all this stuff that’s going on over there, but making sure that the promise stays true and accessible. For these folks that still have a hold on it. And in relation to that I’ve been seeing more boundaries spanning lately where I’ve seen more folks, particularly higher ed folks being in spaces we’re not normally in to talk about what we know as experts.

And that is really encouraging to me because I think part of what we’re dealing with is the fact that we have done a horrible job as experts in the field of saying this is how all this works, right?

Crystal Garcia: Yeah.

Felecia Commodore: This is what this actually means. And I’ve been seeing more higher ed scholars, scholar practitioners, administrators, leaders, policy influencers in spaces. They’re not typically in having conversations with people they don’t typically have conversations with. And I think that’s giving me hope, because I do think the more we get out there and the more we let people know who we are and what we do and what these things mean for them, even if they don’t participate in formal higher education, I think the better Are we off, we are when we’re, when the general public has to figure out how they’re navigating the policies that are being thrown at them and who they are putting in positions of power to do so that, that is giving me a tiny little bit of hope. And it’s, we’re in the second half of basketball season, so Yes.

Heather Shea: So Oh, that’s so good. I yeah, basketball is fantastic. This is definitely my, we’re approaching into, the March Madness, which March Madness. Always a good time.

Yeah, I just wanna name, I think, this space and our community I think is really one of the things that builds a lot of stability for me, feel stabilizing in this moment. And the community we build with students as well. I spent the weekend at a cohort chill and skate. It was at our ice arena and, a whole bunch of people, including myself, who don’t ice skate regularly.

It was just a blast. So the more we can hold onto those spaces where we can be together in a collective, I think that’s really key. I also just wanna name that we at Student Affairs now are really incredibly honored to share that we have been named the recipient of the A CPA Contribution to Higher Education Award.

Thrilled that Felecia and Crystal are gonna also be at the convention. We don’t see this as just a recognition of our platform, but a recognition of the community that is committed to thoughtful, critical dialogue about the future. And certainly current campus con context has been a key part of that.

In a climate that feels uncertain, feels constantly politically charged, fully shifting from the day to day gatherings like ACPA. So there’s lots of different professional associations in the world, but gatherings like these really remind us that we’re not in this moment alone. So we’re really excited to.

To be in Baltimore. We’re gonna be having a student affairs now social as well as a session where we’re talking about podcasts and pedagogy. So please join us either onsite or as I’m sure we will record that and release it later. Also huge thank you as always to Nat Ambrosey our amazing producer.

Now, I’ll turn this episode around in two whole days, so thank you for everything that you do, Nat, and also again Felecia and Crystal and the other correspondents who continually contribute even if they’re not the ones who are on the screen. I’m so grateful to Dmitri and Brendan and Oyon as well.

If you haven’t subscribed, please visit our website, join our weekly newsletter, explore our full archive, including every episode in the current campus context series. I’m Heather Shea. Thanks for watching and let’s make it a great week. Thanks everybody.

Federal Funding / Appropriations

• House Passes FY 2026 Spending Package Preserving Education and Research Funding – ACE
  https://www.acenet.edu/News-Room/Pages/House-Passes-FY-2026-Spending-Package.aspx 
• FY 2026 Consolidated Appropriations Act Overview – Powers Law (background on Pell, FSEOG, FWS funding)
  https://www.powerslaw.com/washington-update-february-2026/

Voting Data & Civic Engagement

• Education Dept. Tells Universities Not to Use Student Voting Data – Inside Higher Ed
  https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/politics-elections/2026/02/05/ed-tells-universities-not-use-student-voting-data

Graduate Loan Limits & Professional Degree Definitions

• U.S. Department of Education Issues Proposed Rule on Loan Limits – ED press release
  https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-issues-proposed-rule-make-higher-education-more-affordable-and-simplify-student-loan-repayment
• Graduate Loan Limits and Professional Degree Definitions Take Shape in ED Proposal – ACE
  https://www.acenet.edu/News-Room/Pages/ED-Issues-OBBB-RISE-Proposed-Rule.aspx
• Fact Sheet on Federal Loan Limits for Graduate & Professional Programs
  https://www.aha.org/fact-sheets/2026-02-11-fact-sheet-federal-student-loan-limits-graduate-and-professional-programs
• Background on OBBBBA student loan provisions (Wikipedia)
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Big_Beautiful_Bill_Act

Professional degree designation background (Wikipedia)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_degree_designation_in_the_United_States