Higher Education 2026 Planning and Lessons Learned from 2025 Predictions

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, and which leadership assumptions are no longer defensible. For presidents, boards, and senior leadership teams preparing for 2026, this conversation provides a grounded planning context based on conditions already in motion.

Topics Covered

• What 2025 confirmed about federal policy instability, accountability, cost pressure, enrollment volatility, and governance risk

• Why the Department of Education is likely to remain in place through 2026 and why its continued existence should not be mistaken for stability

• How redistribution of authority across federal agencies increases compliance complexity for institutions

• Where student loans are likely to move within the federal system and why institutions face growing exposure to borrower outcomes

• Why broad student debt forgiveness remains unlikely and what limited relief options may realistically emerge

• How accountability is shifting toward program-level scrutiny and the implications for academic realignment

• Why accreditation reform remains unsettled and why leaders should treat accreditation as a strategic risk factor

• Workforce Pell expansion, quality oversight challenges, and the risk of fraud and abuse in short-term credentials

• The growing role of states in accountability as federal capacity contracts

• Research funding as political leverage and the planning risk created by funding uncertainty

• Polarization as an operational challenge affecting enrollment, safety, governance, and public trust

• Technology, AI, cybersecurity, and NIST compliance as board-level responsibilities

• Enrollment, demographic decline, cost escalation, and financial pressure entering the 2026 planning cycle

• Mergers, closures, and structural collaboration as necessary adaptation strategies

Key Planning Judgments for 2026

• The Department of Education will persist but continue to shrink and fragment

• Student loans will move further away from the Department, increasing institutional exposure

• Accountability pressure will intensify, particularly at the program level

• Accreditation reform will remain unresolved beyond 2026

• Workforce Pell will expand, bringing both opportunity and heightened oversight risk

• Research funding will remain politically vulnerable

• Cost pressure will continue to drive consolidation and closures

• Technology and cybersecurity will demand sustained leadership attention

This episode is especially relevant for presidents and trustees navigating compressed decision timelines, thinner margins for error, and declining tolerance for ambiguity. The focus is not prediction for its own sake, but clarity about the forces institutions must plan around as they enter 2026.

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