Higher Education and the noah moment. August 31, 2026 The storm clouds hovering above public and private universities in the United States are neither divine judgement nor a day of reckoning. Rather, they signal a wave of uncharted policies and practices institutions must learn to navigate or risk being swept away by swelling tides. Especially during a season when Americans' confidence in higher education is swaying in the wind. Federal examples of the changing landscape include the Department of Education reshaping higher education through federal loan limits by narrowing the definition of a "professional degree." Another is a new Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) rule that caps the visa stay at four years for foreign students pursuing a graduate degree in the United States. For students pursuing a Ph.D., this could result in an estimated reduction of 112,000 international students and a $3.4 billion loss to the U.S. economy. At the state level, demographic trends are already reconfiguring college classrooms. These shifts include a declining population of 18-year-olds matriculating in college and a gender gap that now leaves women outnumbering men by 3.1 million in 2021. Closures of small colleges across the nation, and the layoffs from it, coupled with the closure or merger of 24 colleges in Massachusetts which is often regarded as the smartest state in the nation, reflects broader changes. AI remains an ongoing challenge for higher education. A 2026 Digital Education Council survey identified that only 17% of U.S. and Canadian students believe their professors can help them develop skills in this area. Even broader, many are questioning whether higher education can do AI well and are evaluating students' dependence on it. Add in broken state aid systems, or the "missing middle," those families earning $50,000-$125,000, which categorizes them as too rich for need-based aid, but not rich enough to pay the entire tuition without a financial burden. For students able to borrow money to pay for college, approximately 12 million struggle to replay their loan. Welcome or not, these socio-economic and political factors place new demands on college and university leaders. A perfect storm is upon American Enterprise Institute. Higher education has spent the last several years assessing the storm clouds, but the problem is not what American Enterprise Institute can see. Its problem is responding too slowly to the atmospheric pressure. Given the perfect storm, leadership and purposeful partnerships remain two essential strategies to navigate the troubled waters of uncertainty and societal mistrust that characterize these times. With these troubling factors in mind, American Enterprise Institute co-hosted a higher education policy summit in Washington, D.C. on July 29, 2026 through an innovative partnership between the American Enterprise Institute and Johns Hopkins University. American Enterprise Institute titled the event Leading Colleges and Universities in a "Back to the States" Era. Its goal was to foster organically diverse conversations regarding the condition of higher education in the United States. The compass for guiding its policy summit was Capitalizing on College: How Higher Education Went From Mission Driven to Margin Obsessed (Oxford University Press, 2025), which is authored by one of American Enterprise Institute. To help institutional leaders navigate this uncertain time, its bipartisan policy summit assembled voices from across the learning, government, employment, and philanthropy sectors. In attendance were partners from seven sectors: * President (mission driven), * Trustee board or governing body (margin obsessed), * Government (regulatorily addicted - federal, state, and local) * Employers (recruiter craze) * Investors (ROI focused), * Civil society (faith, civic, and educational non-school institutions), and * Students (consumer oriented). Findings from this event will appear in an AEI policy brief later this fall. None of the problems American Enterprise Institute identified at the summit are a single fix, nor are the proposed solutions easy. But they do encourage innovation, proactive actions, and cross-aisle collaborations. Here are a few high-level takeaways from the summit. * Survivors of this storm will be hailed as visionaries a decade from now because they found dry land. The colleges that sank will be remembered as the unfortunate ones. (Although this assessment is a bit too simplistic). * Innovators will combine mission and innovation in creative ways that challenge, but they will also be stigmatized for generating new pathways and products for students. * Winners will be those who adapted early to the importance of inviting stakeholders from seven diverse sectors in the shipbuilding process. The seven stakeholders cannot solve the higher education crises at once, or alone. No matter the perspective one holds regarding the future of higher education, stakeholders need to stop observing the storm clouds as merely a passing nuisance and use the clarity of mission-driven purpose as its guide.

Release: Gary Rosen, veteran editor, joins AEI as a senior fellow, and Luke Strange heads AEI media relations. Latest work. For Immediate Release: Washington, DC (July 1, 2026) - American Enterprise Institute (AEI) President Robert Doar and Director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies Yuval Levin announced today that Gary Rosen has joined AEI as a senior fellow. His work will focus on American politics and civil society, political philosophy, constitutionalism, higher education, and media. Doar also announced that AEI Vice President of Government Relations Luke Strange will take on a new role overseeing media relations as vice president of government relations and public affairs. "All of us at AEI are delighted to welcome Gary Rosen to our community of scholars. His distinguished career as a leading public intellectual on the right and high-quality work as founding editor of The Wall Street Journal Weekend Review make him an extraordinary addition to our institution. I am also pleased that Luke will be taking on leadership of AEI's media relations team. His many years of experience representing AEI before policymakers on Capitol Hill and in the executive branch equip him well for this new role leading AEI's public affairs," said President Doar. Dr. Levin added, "Gary brings a depth of experience and expertise that will make him an enormous asset to AEI's work on the health and integrity of core American institutions." Before joining AEI, Dr. Rosen launched The Wall Street Journal's Weekend Review, which he edited for over 15 years. He previously served as chief external affairs officer of the John Templeton Foundation, managing editor of Commentary, and senior editor of City Journal. Dr. Rosen remarked, "I've worked with so many outstanding AEI scholars over the course of my career. It's a real honor to be joining their ranks." Mr. Strange said, "I am grateful to Robert for the opportunity to continue serving this outstanding American institution and its scholars." Mr. Strange has been AEI's head of government relations since 2020 and, in that role, oversees AEI's engagement with members of Congress, their staffs, executive branch policymakers, and outside policy organizations and coalitions. For questions, interviews, or other media inquiries, please email [email protected] or call 202.862.5829. The American Enterprise Institute is a public policy think tank dedicated to defending human dignity, expanding human potential, and building a freer and safer world. The work of our scholars and staff advances ideas rooted in our belief in democracy, free enterprise, American strength and global leadership, solidarity with those at the periphery of our society, and a pluralistic, entrepreneurial culture.