Hello everyone, and welcome to this special, mid-summer edition of the Student Success Stack! With policymakers across the country on recess, it is a good opportunity for our community to take a look at some big-picture trends impacting students on campuses of all shapes and sizes across the country.
One of the things I enjoy most about my role is that I get to spend time with people who care deeply about helping students succeed. This includes college presidents, student affairs leaders, policymakers, and other stakeholders from around the country.
Over the past few weeks, I have noticed an interesting disconnect.
If you only followed the headlines, you would probably come away thinking higher education is defined almost entirely by enrollment challenges, AI disruption, and declining public confidence. Those are definitely real issues. But when I sit down with the people doing this work every day, and, more importantly, when our team and our partners listen directly to students, I often hear something more optimistic.
That tension has been on my mind since the release of EdSights’ 2026 Student Voice Score® Report. Based on feedback from more than 125,000 students, the report found that student satisfaction has increased for the third consecutive year.
This does not mean higher education has solved its challenges. It does suggest that many institutions are quietly making meaningful progress. This sort of progress, oftentimes student-by-student, does not always make the front page.
Find more about EdSights’ 2026 SVS® report here.
A new Lumina Foundation/Gallup survey found that public confidence in higher education remains under pressure.
One thing I keep coming back to is that this measures how the public feels, not necessarily how students feel.
The SVS Report points in a different direction. Students continue to report improving experiences with their institutions. That does not at all invalidate broader concerns, but it does remind us how important it is to hear directly from the people actually living the college experience every day.
Nearly every conference and meeting I participate in eventually finds its way to a discussion about AI.
What’s interesting is that the conversation has changed. Six months ago, people wanted to know what AI could do. Today they are asking how to implement it responsibly, where it belongs, and where it does not.
From my perspective, this makes sense, and it is a win to be focused on outcomes and solutions.
The institutions that will benefit most from AI will be the ones using technology to strengthen the human relationships that matter most to student success.
A recent Financial Times story hits on this discussion and distinction.
One theme I have heard repeatedly, from policymakers and senior higher education administrators from Alabama to Arizona to New York, is that institutions are rethinking long-held assumptions about today’s learners.
Students are balancing work, caregiving responsibilities, financial pressures, and increasingly complex lives. Supporting them requires more than great academic programs. It requires understanding what they are experiencing while they are experiencing it.
That may be one of the biggest shifts happening in higher education today.
I found this recent report from Inside Higher Ed to be particularly relevant along these lines.
To unpack the 2026 SVS® report, I asked Jared Tippets, Vice President for Student Affairs at Southern Utah University (SUU) to join me for a conversation. SUU was recognized on the inaugural 2026 Student Voice Score® Honors List.
Rather than talking about rankings or recognition, our conversation focused on something much more interesting:
What does it actually look like to build a culture that listens to students?
In our conversation, Jared shared his perspective on why student satisfaction continues to improve despite challenging headlines, what surprised him most about this year’s Student Voice Score® Report, and what other institutions can learn from SUU’s approach to supporting students.
Watch our conversation here:
125,000.
That’s how many students contributed to this year’s Student Voice Score® Report.
Sometimes we talk about “student voice” as an abstract concept.
When we really break it down, it is valuable for us to think about 125,000 individual students telling us what is and is not working about their college experience.
To me, one of the biggest lessons from this year’s report is that the institutions receiving the strongest feedback are not necessarily the ones making the biggest headlines.
More often, they are the ones paying close attention to what students are telling them, and acting on it.
With policymakers getting ready to roar back into action this fall, I am looking forward to including their perspective in our next edition.
As always, be in touch with thoughts, questions, or ideas!
Until next month,
Jordan Stein
jordan@edsights.io
No posts
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.