Washington Update: July 2025 Reconciliation Bill’s Impact on Higher Ed
Release Date: 07/22/2025
FIRE on Campus Leadership and the Defense of Open Inquiry
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Free speech on campus is not an abstract constitutional issue—it’s a governance challenge for presidents and boards. In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton is joined by Dr. Sean Stevens, Chief Research Advisor at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), to examine the current state of campus free speech and what institutional leaders must do to protect open inquiry under increasing political and social pressure. Drawing on FIRE’s national research and campus speech databases, Stevens outlines the sharp rise in government-involved...
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Stop-Outs, Transfers, and ROI: The Data Already Exists and You're Not Using It
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Agile Change Management for Today's Higher Education Leaders
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Using Entrepreneurship to Redesign the College Operating Model
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In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Jeff Meade, Founding Director of the Every Quinnite is an Entrepreneur program at Paul Quinn College, about how the institution has embedded entrepreneurship into the operating model of the college itself. Rather than treating entrepreneurship as an elective or a business school track, Paul Quinn uses it as a structural solution to some of higher education’s biggest challenges: workforce readiness, student engagement, institutional costs, and student debt. As one of only eight federally recognized work...
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Reduce Student Debt Risk and Improve Employability with Distributed Practicum
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Workforce readiness, hands-on learning, and flexible credentialing are no longer peripheral conversations in higher education. They are central to how institutions are being judged on value, relevance, and outcomes. In this episode of , Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with , Provost and Chief Academic Officer at , about how applied, skills-based education can be delivered beyond traditional campuses without sacrificing rigor or quality. McNeely shares how SDI redesigned hands-on instruction for distributed learners by moving labs into students’ homes, rethinking assessment around demonstrated...
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Empathy in Higher Education Leadership Without Losing Your Edge
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Empathy is easy to talk about and harder to practice when the pressure is high. In higher education, leaders are often navigating conflict, fatigue, and urgency, which is exactly when empathy gets misread as weakness instead of treated as a leadership competency. In this episode of the , speaks with and founder of , about building empathy as a practical skill leaders can use without surrendering standards or authority. Parson breaks empathy down into usable behaviors, including perspective-taking, emotional self-management, and question framing that reduces defensiveness. The discussion also...
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The Case for a Chief Enrollment Management Officer in Higher Education
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In this episode of the , Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with , assistant dean of Extended Learning and director of the Emeritus Institute at Saddleback College, one of the nation’s highest-performing community colleges. The conversation focuses on why enrollment challenges persist even at strong institutions and how treating enrollment as a shared responsibility—rather than a system with clear executive ownership—creates fragmentation across admissions, student services, academics, and outcomes. Dr. Predoehl explains the Chief Enrollment Management Officer concept and why a cabinet-level...
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How Stevens Tech Became One of the Strongest Transformation Stories in Higher Education
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Higher Education 2026 Planning and Lessons Learned from 2025 Predictions
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Higher education enters 2026 under conditions that are no longer hypothetical. In this 8th annual end-of-year episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton is joined by Tom Netting of TEN Government Strategies to review how the predictions made at the end of 2024 played out during the 2025 operating year and what those outcomes mean for institutional planning in 2026. Rather than offering speculative forecasts, this episode uses 2025 as a calibration year. When predictions materialize, they remove ambiguity. They clarify which pressures are structural, which risks persist,...
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Strategic Insights from the 2025 AAC&U Employer Survey: What Employers Want From Higher Education
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In this episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton speaks with Dr. Ashley Finley, Vice President of Research and Senior Advisor to the President at the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), about the findings of the and what they reveal about employer expectations for higher education. Based on nearly 20 years of longitudinal research, the 2025 survey challenges many of the dominant public narratives about the value of college. Employers continue to express strong confidence in higher education, place equal importance on workforce preparation...
info_outlineHigher education leaders are facing the most sweeping set of federal regulatory and funding changes in over a decade. In this Washington Update episode of the Changing Higher Ed® podcast, Dr. Drumm McNaughton welcomes back frequent guest Tom Netting, president of TEN Government Strategies, to discuss the July 2025 budget reconciliation bill—federal legislation that significantly alters student loans, Pell Grants, institutional accountability, and the rules governing program eligibility.
While not a formal reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, the bill introduces statutory earnings-based accountability for degree programs, lifetime loan caps, professional judgment changes, and new eligibility requirements for short-term Pell programs.
Netting also discusses concurrent developments in accreditation and distance education oversight, including the rise of a new accreditor in Florida and its potential implications for NC-SARA and federal triad stability.
This episode is a must-listen for presidents, trustees, CFOs, and compliance officers preparing for upcoming reporting deadlines, new negotiated rulemaking cycles, and long-term institutional planning under new federal constraints.
Topics Covered
- How the July 2025 reconciliation bill rewrites federal student aid and accountability rules
- What the new earnings-based accountability measure means for degree programs
- Pell Grant expansion for short-term workforce programs and the required outcomes thresholds
- The elimination of Grad PLUS loans and new lifetime borrowing caps for students and families
- Changes to professional judgment authority and how institutions can apply it by cohort
- New 90/10 revenue guidance and how it affects distance education classifications
- Delayed implementation of Borrower Defense and Closed School Discharge regulations
- The emergence of Florida’s state-based accreditor and its expected NACIQI review
- Why NC-SARA recognition may be impacted by nontraditional accreditation
- The likelihood of a second reconciliation bill or technical corrections package
Three Key Takeaways for Leadership
- Institutional leaders must prepare now for dual accountability frameworks and new reporting obligations.
- Expanded professional judgment offers new flexibility but must be applied with consistency and clear documentation.
- Accreditation and state authorization pathways are shifting—compliance teams must monitor evolving standards across federal and state lines.
This episode provides critical insights for leaders navigating a changing regulatory environment, with practical implications for finance, compliance, and academic planning.
Recommended For: Presidents, trustees, chief financial officers, compliance officers, and accreditation liaisons responsible for institutional strategy and Title IV eligibility.
Read the transcript: https://changinghighered.com/washington-update-july-2025-reconciliation-bill-impact-on-higher-ed/
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