Robert Kelchen

@robertkelchen.com

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Professor & department head, University of Tennessee, Knoxville. I study higher ed finance, accountability, and financial aid. Washington Monthly rankings data editor. Dad, gardener, and baker. Personal account. https://robertkelchen.com/

A chart summarizing what parents want for their kids right after graduating high school.
Some Kelchen guy with the lead article in the Chronicle of Higher Education at this moment.
Zinnias, marigolds, and other flowers enjoy a steamy July evening.
Potty-training consultants, who work intensively with toddlers over several days, charge anywhere from $600 to $4,500. Private bike-riding lessons, the kind of thing many parents handle on a Saturday afternoon, can run $80 to $450 per session. Don’t want to pack your kids up for summer camp? You can hire someone for $125 an hour. For families who want full-time dedicated staff, a travel nanny costs $120,000 to $170,000 a year; a private governess, a tutor who blends academics with social development, can today reach $200,000.
Colleges and universities nationwide face a battery of financial challenges, from federal research cuts to declining student populations. Schools are trying to become more flexible as workforce and student needs grow more unpredictable, said Robert Kelchen, a professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville who specializes in education finances. Administrative and support-staff jobs are “the least painful area to cut,” he said.
Lots of fresh tomatoes from the garden, ready to roast!
Inside Higher Ed analysis highlights creativity needs amid flat funding. Expert Perspectives and Real-World Case Studies Dr. Robert Kelchen, SHEF lead, attributes the FY2025 dip to enrollment recovery outstripping budgets. In West Virginia, cuts stemmed from one-time prior funds expiring, prompting efficiency drives. Illinois' high funding supports robust access, contrasting Arizona's struggles with 47 percent shortfalls.
A small marching band on July 4, 2006.
Historically, federal and state governments have been reluctant to step into the affairs of private colleges, said Robert Kelchen, a professor of educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, because intervening can be “a political mess.” No one wants to see a school die, and regulators especially “don’t want to be the one blamed for killing the school,” he added.
Love me some Gradt PLUS.
The two-year college pathway is disappearing. Public community colleges have declined from 1,092 institutions in 1997 to 817 today. Private two-year institutions fell even more dramatically, from 771 to 451 in just over a decade. This erosion disproportionately affects students who depend on locally accessible education.
College administrators desperate to protect bloated budgets will insist in the coming years that they need big state bailouts. But more spending hasn’t kept higher education affordable and, even worse, hasn’t necessarily led to better student outcomes.
The recent public statements and investigations are intended to underscore not just the public service that universities provide, and the necessity of independence from political pressure, but also their desire to regain public confidence, according to some university leaders. There seem to be two strategies at play with recent efforts, said Robert Kelchen, a professor of education policy at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. “One is trying to head off additional scrutiny and investigations from the federal government,” he said. “And the second is using the administration’s preferred language, really, against the administration.”
Raw purple beans.
Community colleges get extra state money when students with greater needs earn a certificate. But in fiscal year 2027, that extra funding will shrink — from 25 cents to 20 cents on the dollar for low-income and academically underprepared students, and from 50 cents to 40 cents per dollar for adult learners 25 and older. TCC expects to lose $2 million in state funding because of this change, although Anglin said the college hopes to make up the difference by outperforming state projections and increasing enrollment.
But the label is misleading: The “professional” classification in this context does not carry a judgment on a degree’s worth or the level of expertise an occupation requires. Historically, the term “professional degree” has referred to a handful of high-cost but also high-earning fields such as medicine, dentistry, and law—and that is the understanding of the “professional” classification that the department’s definition seeks to preserve. In recognition of these higher salaries, but also the higher costs involved for medical school and the like, OBBBA allows students in “professional” programs to borrow up to $50,000 per year, more than twice the maximum at standard graduate programs. The legislation restricts that extraordinary level of borrowing to programs where graduates earn salaries on par with doctors, dentists, and lawyers—and unfortunately, education doesn’t fit that description.
Recently, I got a firsthand glimpse of how this environment is affecting faculty members. I met a professor for coffee at a Starbucks on NW 13th Street, right next to Gainesville High School, where I was a student in the 1990s. We weren’t discussing anything particularly controversial, but the professor was nervous; she only wanted to talk on background. After a while, we moved to a table outside so as not to be in earshot of anyone. A few minutes later, though, a woman came outside, ostensibly to talk on her phone. The professor was unnerved. What if this woman was secretly recording us? Why was she holding her phone behind her back, just feet from our table? Was this one of the nameless, faceless people who’ve been making a meal of discrediting UF over the past year?
"If you ever want to feel like you’re going nuts,” the 50-year-old said in an interview, “buy a college campus in the middle of nowhere.” Bhakta is combing through proposals from entities that promise to maintain the roughly 115 acres. He says he is looking for applicants who can show “an alignment with the vision of the revival of the United States, Western civilization and Christendom through faith-based education.” The recipient should also budget $1.5 million a year to maintain existing infrastructure and catch up on deferred maintenance, according to Bhakta’s website.
Lilies stealing the show.
Robert Kelchen, a professor of education at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, told Inside Higher Ed that Hazelden Betty Ford’s approach aligns with the broader industry push for higher education “to do things quicker, faster, better, and see what works.” Kelchen pointed to competency-based education and the growing deployment of three-year bachelor’s degrees with reduced credit loads as similar examples of colleges innovating in ways that “can save students time and money” and “get people out in the workforce quicker.” But, he warned, some students may need remediation and additional support to be successful. He suggested that accreditor approval could also be an obstacle, though that wasn’t the case for Hazelden Betty Ford. As accreditors face mounting scrutiny from the Trump administration, which has accused such organizations of driving up costs and stifling innovation, Kelchen suspects they are likely to be more flexible.
With Clemson—led by a board largely appointed by state officials in a state long dominated by Republicans—Kelchen argued that Guskiewicz is getting a greater sense of certainty. He added that while Clemson is a step down “from a prestige standpoint,” it provides more day-to-day stability. Kelchen noted, too, that Guskiewicz’s parting message was “extraordinarily rare” for a president in underscoring his strained relationship with the board as the impetus for his exit. Now, as Michigan State begins its next presidential search, it will do so with a reputation for persistent board dysfunction that will likely complicate the search and drive up salary demands. “They’re going to have to pay the next president a lot of money,” Kelchen said.
An orange lily.
Me, in a short sleeve button-down shirt walking to the office.
Robert Kelchen, Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, says he is “not surprised that a growing number of Republican-led states are trying to restrict scholarships for international students”. “This follows decisions to eliminate in-state tuition benefits for DACA students and also matches efforts from the Trump administration to restrict immigration,” Kelchen says. DACA is an acronym for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and refers to students who arrived in the United States as children without lawful status. Kelchen says while the proposed measures could potentially grant more financial aid to in-state students, it would also take away from allocating financial aid based on merit alone. “I expect this trend to continue, especially as Republican primary voters are focused heavily on immigration,” Kelchen says.
A nearly empty UTK campus.
Master’s degree programs have proliferated over the past two decades, increasing 69% to more than 33,500 programs between 2005 and 2021, according to a report published by the Postsecondary Education and Economics Research Center. Even more programs have launched in the past five years, many with a focus on artificial intelligence reskilling.
Happy blueberries at sunset.
Mutual, I'm sure! From White Christmas.
As an example, the association pointed to a last-minute change regarding lifetime loan limits that was announced just days before the final regulations for that policy were released, saying it is “destabilizing financial aid administration and putting students at risk.” But Ellen Keast, press secretary for higher education, described the letter as "wholly inaccurate" that "calls into question the credibility of NASFAA’s leadership." "The department has moved with intentionality to implement some of the most transformative higher education reforms in decades including lowering the cost of college, bridging the gap between education and the workforce, and ushering in a new era of accountability," she told Inside Higher Ed. "We understand that these reforms are coming at a rapid pace, and we will continue to support financial aid administrators and other stakeholders directly as we have done since the bill passed nearly a year ago.” Still, NASFAA argues that flexibility in the audit process—the extent of which it did not define—would ensure that aid administrators operating in good faith are not penalized for the decisions they make with limited information, the letter explains.
"There’s the inherent arbitrariness of decisions when you have so many more applicants than spots,” says Dominique J. Baker, an associate professor of education and public policy at the University of Delaware, whose research focuses on equity in admissions. “But then there are the pieces of the process that aren’t transparent because colleges obscure the reality of them.” Baker, a former assistant dean of admissions at the University of Virginia, would like to see institutions share data on the number of students admitted who are the children of alumni, donors, and elected officials. “We usually don’t get any information about that,” she says. “These institutions know that if the public saw how many of those students are getting in, it would pierce some of their mystique, and they might lose some cachet.”
Though interscholastic officials track the number of transfers, they don’t collect data on how those students fare academically. Educators said keeping transfers on course to graduate can be difficult. Counselors have to piece together transcripts from multiple schools in different counties and students are frequently behind academically. Schools “kind of push them along,” said Gunter, athletic director and former guidance counselor at Amos P. Godby High in Tallahassee. “By the time you get to the senior year, you are missing so much and the last school has to try to plug those holes.”
My garden, with a nice blue shed behind it.
Faculty, staff, and students Due the ongoing nationwide Canvas outage, all Friday exams are postponed. Faculty, staff, and students will receive more information Friday on a revised schedule. Instructure, Canvas’ parent company, shut down Canvas nationwide due to a cybersecurity incident that has affected education institutions across thel country. Learn more about the Canvas outage. The Office of Innovative Technologies (OIT) is continuing to monitor the disruption. John Zomchick  Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor  Dan Harder  Chief Academic Technology Officer and Deputy Chief Information Officer 
Two little robots servicing a broken rocket. I hope they get a Moon Pie.
Colleges and universities are endlessly resilient and adaptable, seeking new applicant pools when old ones dry up. The critics never understand that, but the statisticians in the government do; they estimate enrollments to be stable through at least 2031, with substantial increases in the number of part-time students and students older than 35. Stability is the watchword these days. Although enrollments grew rapidly in the first decade of the century, they have since flattened out. There was a post-COVID dip, but the numbers in the last academic year passed 2019 levels again and continue to rise. The closure epidemic narrative is a ghost story told by a flashlight salesman. Constancy is not the stuff of headlines, and it doesn’t get consultants hired, but it’s the reality. College enrollments are trudging along just fine, and the pool of colleges and universities—with the important exclusion of for-profit schools—is extremely stable. Let’s stop bracing for a crash that isn’t coming.
Tuition and fees have outpaced overall inflation for decades, and the strain is no longer theoretical. Robert Kelchen, a professor of education at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, found in his analysis of college finance data for fiscal 2024 that 31% of private nonprofit institutions posted losses. Moody’s downgraded St. Michael’s College in Colchester, Vt., to junk in 2022. This isn’t a story about the demographic cliff. The trouble was here first.
5 Appendix: Table 1 CIP CODES CATEGORY/HIGH DEMAND FIELDS ACCOUNTING AND COMPUTER SCIENCE AGRICULTURAL/ANIMAL/PLANT/VETERINARY SCIENCE AND RELATED FIELDS BIOLOGICAL AND BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES BUSINESS, MANAGEMENT, MARKETING, AND RELATED SUPPORT SERVICES COMMUNICATION, JOURNALISM, AND RELATED PROGRAMS COMPUTATIONAL SCIENCE COMPUTER AND INFORMATION SCIENCES AND SUPPORT SERVICES DATA ANALYTICS DATA SCIENCE DIGITAL MARKETING EDUCATION EDUCATIONAL ASSESSMENT, EVALUATION, AND RESEARCH ENGINEERING ENGINEERING/ENGINEERING-RELATED TECHNOLOGIES/TECHNICIANS FAMILY AND CONSUMER SCIENCES/HUMAN SCIENCES GRAPHIC DESIGN HEALTH PROFESSIONS AND RELATED PROGRAMS HEALTH PROFESSIONS RESIDENCY/FELLOWSHIP PROGRAMS HOMELAND SECURITY, LAW ENFORCEMENT, FIREFIGHTING AND RELATED PROTECTIVE SERVICES LINGUISTICS AND COMPUTER SCIENCE MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTER SCIENCE MATHEMATICS AND STATISTICS PARKS, RECREATION, LEISURE, FITNESS, AND KINESIOLOGY PSYCHOLOGY PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND SOCIAL SERVICE PROFESSIONS SOCIAL SCIENCES SOCIAL WORK THANATOLOGY VETERINARY MEDICINE
"Between my children and my medical stuff, there’s no way I can afford this,” said Able-Brown, who was diagnosed with cancer at the beginning of the year. “The cost of everything is already going up, and now I have to try and figure out potentially a $1,200 student loan bill.” She said she has been trying to get on the phone with her loan servicer, but is often left on hold for hours. She has started to apply for part-time jobs.
One waffle with a bunny design and one with a flower design.
A tiny tomato!
A giant picture of me and Alex Usher at the ARL conference.
“I trust not in that f*ck a** administration. I don’t trust in the Board of Trustees. I don’t trust in a floating $100 bill in the sky, but I trust in all of you, in this community, to ensure that all employees of Hampshire College are fairly and well compensated,” Parks said.
A nearly full moon at dusk.
The association has no current sanctions or open investigations into Texas A&M or Texas Tech, said Stephen Pruitt, president of the association. He also said the accreditor hasn’t received any complaints about either university, including from faculty. Both institutions are in good standing—Texas Tech’s accreditation was renewed in 2025 for another 10 years. The higher education watchdog is limited in its ability to respond to the curricular policies because it cannot require its member institutions to adhere to a standard that would force them to violate state law or policy, Pruitt said. “We have always made it a practice that we don’t hold institutions accountable when there’s a state law that may [contradict] our standards,” he said. “At the end of the day, states rule the day.”
Instructions for planting the Bailey II peanut, a product of North Carolina State University.
One ripe strawberry alongside a bunch of tiny green ones.
On Thursday, speaking at Boston College, Charlie Baker, the former governor of Massachusetts and now president of the NCAA, suggested exactly that, saying college sports could help institutions stabilize enrollment. “I actually think part of the reason people are spending money on sports, in many cases, is because sports build brand and brand matters,” Baker said. However, analysts like Kelchen remain skeptical that such approaches can offset broader demographic and financial headwinds. “The sweaty-butts-in-seats strategy is pretty common,” he said. “Many small colleges are 30% or more athletes.” The problem, Kelchen added, is that programs that offer athletic and academic scholarships to attract students can be expensive to run and strain already fragile finances.
Working with Treasury “gives us a blank state to re-envision what is working well, what is not and what can we do better? And that’s a lot,” the under secretary said, adding that the financial agency has “better talent” and “better systems” than the Education Department. The interagency agreement’s transfer plan includes three phases, the first of which entails shifting all responsibilities related to defaulted loans; that means collecting involuntary loan payments through Social Security, tax returns and other government benefits as well as helping borrowers get out of default through rehabilitation. Currently, about a quarter of all borrowers are in default, and that number is expected to climb as borrowers whose payments were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic are forced to resume. In stage two, ED plans to hand off the remainder of the loan portfolio, and in the third stage, it will transfer management of all other student aid, including the Pell Grant and the FAFSA.
The cover of the book "The Duckling Gets a Cookie!?"
The Guggenheim Foundation has always been committed to awarding Fellowships at the highest level. Since its founding in 1925, the Foundation has awarded nearly $450 million in fellowships to more than 19,000 Fellows. This year, applications in the Creative Arts and Humanities were up by 50% and applications in the Sciences were up by 86%. At a time when intellectual and creative life is under attack, the Foundation continues to demonstrate its commitment to supporting extraordinary individuals breaking new ground in the Creative Arts, Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, Humanities, and a range of interdisciplinary fields.
The Knoxville Sunsphere.
A very happy midlevel campus administrator enjoying peppermint ice cream.
Some Republican lawmakers have promised to take action against board members, 10 of whom have been seated but not yet confirmed by the Legislature. “Make no mistake about it, the firing of UW President Rothman is a blatant partisan hatchet job. Despite his efforts to enact meaningful reforms to move our world-class institutions forward, members of the Board of Regents apparently believe President Rothman should be punished for not being liberal enough,” State Senator Patrick Testin posted on social media Tuesday night. “His only crime was his willingness to work with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to get things done. Because the Board of Regents decided to remove President Rothman without just cause, I am calling on the Senate to reject every single one of their confirmations. As they say, actions have consequences.” Evers, who is not running for re-election, has said little about the decision to fire Rothman. On Monday, asked by the press about the looming termination, he said, “It’s their call.”
Trump Agrees to Two-Week Cease-Fire With Iran if Hormuz Re-Opened
Right next to the Oak Ridge nuclear facility, birthplace of the atomic bomb.
A carrot cake pancake.
Absent a comprehensive national solution, therefore, the escalating financial demands to succeed in football and basketball combined with the significantly loosened rules governing eligibility, transfers, and pay-for-play schemes may force curtailment of women’s and Olympics sports, and may even jeopardize the overall financial well-being of universities with which the Federal Government has important financial relationships. Universities are important defense research contractors for the Department of War, important medical research contractors for the Department of Health and Human Services, and important scientific research contractors for the National Science Foundation. The health of the university system is integral to the Federal Government’s basic functioning.
A gorgeous azalea bush.
A table showing the FY27 discretionary budget, which features cuts almost everywhere except for the Department of Defense.