{"id":38324,"date":"2025-12-20T00:59:50","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T00:59:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=38324"},"modified":"2025-12-20T00:59:50","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T00:59:50","slug":"trends-in-higher-education-student-success-for-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=38324","title":{"rendered":"Trends in higher education student success for 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n<\/p>\n

The higher ed sector underwent rapid change in 2025, as leaders navigated new and evolving federal and state policy, emerging technologies and shifting employer expectations for graduates, all while responding to the diverse and pressing needs of students.<\/p>\n

For practitioners, faculty, staff and administrators looking to impact student success in the new year, Inside Higher Ed<\/em> identified 26 data points that outline the major trends of 2025 and those to watch out for in 2026.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. 80\u00a0percent of college students rate the quality of their education as good or excellent, up 7 percentage points from 2024.<\/li>\n
  2. 83\u00a0percent of the class of 2023 remained enrolled for two terms and the national persistence rate rose to 77.6\u00a0percent, up from 74.8\u00a0percent in 2019.<\/li>\n
  3. Two-thirds of Americans say a four-year degree isn\u2019t worth the cost because graduates leave without a specific job and with large amounts of debt.<\/li>\n
  4. Nearly 10\u00a0percent of incoming first-year students speak a first language other than English; of these students, approximately half are U.S. citizens.<\/li>\n
  5. One-third of students said they\u2019re thriving, reporting high levels of success in relationships, self-esteem, purpose and optimism.<\/li>\n
  6. 15\u00a0percent of colleges are using AI for student advising and support; an additional 26\u00a0percent use genAI for predictive analytics in student performance and trends.&<\/li>\n
  7. 70\u00a0percent of Americans believe higher education is \u201cgoing in the wrong direction\u201d due to high costs, poor preparation for the job market and ineffective development of students\u2019 life skills.<\/li>\n
  8. 62\u00a0percent of students said they have \u201cvery high\u201d or \u201csomewhat high\u201d trust in their college or university; 11\u00a0percent rate their trust as \u201csomewhat low\u201d or \u201cvery low.\u201d<\/li>\n
  9. 23\u00a0percent of stop-outs said they won\u2019t re-enroll because they can\u2019t afford upfront costs; 15\u00a0percent said they are already too burdened by student debt to re-enroll.<\/li>\n
  10. 45\u00a0percent of students want colleges to encourage faculty members to limit high-stakes exams to improve their academic success; 40\u00a0percent want to see stronger connections between classroom learning and their career goals.<\/li>\n
  11. 36\u00a0percent of students have not participated in any extracurricular or co-curricular experiences while in college; an additional 39\u00a0percent say they\u2019re very involved in at least one activity.<\/li>\n
  12. 71\u00a0percent of students have experienced financial trouble while enrolled in college, and 68\u00a0percent said they ran out of money at least once since the start of the year.<\/li>\n
  13. 43\u00a0percent of students say they study in the evening, while 18\u00a0percent said they study at night.<\/li>\n
  14. 84\u00a0percent of students say they know when and whether to use generative artificial intelligence to help with their coursework; the majority attributed this knowledge to faculty instruction or syllabi language.<\/li>\n
  15. 24\u00a0percent of parenting students said they missed at least one day of class in the past semester due to a lack of childcare.<\/li>\n
  16. 71\u00a0percent of students said it was acceptable to shout down a speaker to prevent them from speaking on campus; 54\u00a0percent believe it\u2019s acceptable to block other students from attending a campus speech.<\/li>\n
  17. International enrollment declined 1\u00a0percent in fall 2025, with 17\u00a0percent fewer new students coming to U.S. campuses this past fall.<\/li>\n
  18. As of August, 37\u00a0percent of students said federal actions to limit diversity, equity and inclusion have had no real impact on their college experience.<\/li>\n
  19. 57\u00a0percent of students said cost of living is \u201ca major problem,\u201d for college students today; 55\u00a0percent said mental health issues are a major problem, as well.<\/li>\n
  20. 49\u00a0percent of high school students who didn\u2019t apply for FAFSA said they didn\u2019t believe they qualified for aid.<\/li>\n
  21. 59\u00a0percent of Americans are in favor of awarding green cards to foreign students who graduate from American universities so they can work in the U.S.<\/li>\n
  22. 87\u00a0percent of Gen Z said they feel unprepared to succeed at work due to limited guidance, unclear paths to career from school and uncertainty about which skills matter most.<\/li>\n
  23. Two-thirds of college presidents are concerned about student mental health and well-being.<\/li>\n
  24. Only 44\u00a0percent of students say they know some information about post-graduation outcomes for alumni of their college or university; 11\u00a0percent say they\u2019re not sure where to find this information.<\/li>\n
  25. 67\u00a0percent of students said they don\u2019t use AI in their job searches; 29\u00a0percent said they avoid it because they have ethical concerns about using the tool.<\/li>\n
  26. 94\u00a0percent of employers think it\u2019s equally important for colleges to prepare a skilled and educated workforce and to help students become informed citizens.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Want more data? <\/em>Subscribe to our weekday newsletter on Student Success here.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The higher ed sector underwent rapid change in 2025, as leaders navigated new and evolving federal and state policy, emerging technologies and shifting employer expectations for graduates, all while responding to the diverse and pressing needs of students. For practitioners, faculty, staff and administrators looking to impact student success in the new year, Inside Higher<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38325,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[496,495,393,873,1080],"class_list":{"0":"post-38324","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-education","9":"tag-higher","10":"tag-student","11":"tag-success","12":"tag-trends"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}