Hundreds of Colleges Are Sending Acceptance Letters to Kids Who Didn’t Even Apply [ WSJ ]

The flava:

Hundreds of colleges are sending students letters of admission—without even requiring an application.

Schools are increasingly agreeing to admit students based on a handful of criteria, like high school transcripts. Known as “direct admissions,” this expedited process is free and omits required essays, questions about extracurriculars and mandated standardized tests. 

In turn, the colleges—which are seeking ways to attract more students amid broader financial headwinds—gain exposure to prospects who may never have heard of them otherwise. They then woo the young people into enrolling.

Proponents call the approach a solution for both sides.

“Instead of a student applying to the institution, the institution applies to them,” said Angel Perez, chief executive of the National Association for College Admission Counseling. “It’s a way for students not to have to jump through hoops in order to get into college.”

Direct admission has ballooned in popularity, particularly among less-selective private schools vying for a shrinking pool of college-goers. On the Common App, the number of participating institutions has more than tripled since 2023-24, representing about a fifth of the app’s partners, said Chief Executive Jenny Rickard. More than a dozen states now have direct-admissions initiatives.

“We can no longer take a posture that expects our students to come to us,” said Karlyn Crowley, president of Kalamazoo College in Michigan, which added direct admissions this year through EAB’s Match platform. “We’re at a new moment.”

The article:

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/hundreds-of-colleges-are-sending-acceptance-letters-to-kids-who-didnt-even-apply-21d37dd9

A makeover for college: No gym, no meal plan and two years of work [ NPR ]

The flava:

The buildings that frame a grassy quad on a hill above Vermont's capital city are all red brick and white trim, dating from as far back as the 1870s.

This quintessential college campus from the 19th century is where a group of business, college and government leaders is working on the task of reinventing higher education for the 21st century.

An entirely new college is being planned here to change not only how higher education is delivered, but at what price. It also proposes to highlight ways the current business model no longer works, as evidenced by the 152 colleges and universities that have closed or merged since 2016, and the 442 others that a new projection says are at risk.

So deeply entrenched are the problems confronting higher education that a growing chorus of innovators says the easiest way to fix them is to begin again from scratch.

The Greenway Institute — "green" as in new — will adopt instructional methods proven to work well, such as real-world training under the supervision of faculty mentors, while stripping away such things as layers of administrators and nonacademic amenities that make college in the United States so expensive.

"It's not fancy. It's a place where you do have a meaningful relationship with your faculty members. But you also take out your own trash," said Mark Somerville, the founding president.

Even more unexpected than the location of this startup is that it comes at a time when so many colleges are closing. In Vermont alone, seven private colleges have shut down in the last 10 years.

But Somerville, the former provost of Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts, said this "moment of mass extinction" makes it clearer than ever that "we need new models in higher ed."

Enough of these experimental higher education institutions are in the planning stages that they have been organized by Duke University into a Future Universities Alliance. Greenway is a member. . . .      

The article:

https://www.npr.org/2026/09/01/nx-s1-5935431/college-reinvented-vermont-work-experience

The SAT's 100-year grip on higher ed [ Throughline, from NPR ]

Welcome to Fall 2026! | Oakland Community College

Day in the Life of a Walk-On at Notre Dame Football [ Notre Dame Fighting Irish ]

Why college sports are bleeding cash—and forcing students to pay [ Atlanta News First ]

Why Syracuse Can’t Attract the Students It Needs to Pay the Bills [ WSJ ]

The flava:

When he was the director of international student services at Syracuse University, Juan Tavares received a regular Saturday email from the dean of admissions reporting the tally of student applications, acceptances and enrollment deposits.

During the pandemic the numbers began to slide, so Tavares offered the admissions team seven suggestions to improve recruiting, he said. The recommendations centered on the idea that Syracuse was failing to recruit aggressively enough.

“The problem with Syracuse is that the school thinks of itself as like an Ivy, but it’s not,” Tavares said.

Tavares, who no longer works at the school, said his recommendations went nowhere. 

In 2025, the weaknesses he had pointed out collided with President Trump’s high profile crackdown on student visas. Syracuse’s international enrollment numbers declined by half for undergraduate and graduate students. 

Syracuse also failed to draw enough students overall—prompting it to offer emergency financial-aid packages to lure freshmen.

This school year, which began Aug. 24, enrollment fell short, sending the school into a 1.5% budget shortfall. 

Syracuse also added nearly half a billion in debt to build desperately needed new dorms, which brought on a bond market reprimand. And it recently cut programs it said weren’t popular. 

A national brand-name institution with a $2.5 billion endowment and a storied 150-year tradition is suddenly beginning to flail.

The problems that have long buffeted the nation’s smaller schools are now spreading to the nation’s bigger, richer universities—with midsize private schools such as Syracuse especially feeling the pinch. . . .      

The article:

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/syracuse-student-application-enrollment-crisis-budget-ff142896

A West Point for Space? Trump Calls for New Academy to Train Space Personnel [ WSJ ]

The flava:

The U.S. will develop an academy to train personnel for government space jobs, along the lines of long-established institutions that do the same for the Air Force and Coast Guard. 

President Trump signed an executive order Friday to establish the U.S. Space Academy, during an event at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. The new institution will aim to prepare people to take on a range of positions at NASA, in military space agencies and the private sector, according to the White House.

“It’s clear we will need to educate and train an entire generation of skilled servicemembers and engineers and civil operators and everything else,” Trump said of the space academy, comparing it to West Point, the military educational institution in New York. He didn’t say where the institution would be located. 

The academy will be led by NASA and offer both technical education and leadership training. Jared Isaacman, the NASA administrator, will serve as chairman of a presidential commission set up to advise the president on creating the institution. . . .      

The article:

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/a-west-point-for-space-trump-calls-for-new-academy-to-train-space-personnel-3d3bb9a7

Report of MIT’s Ad Hoc Committee on AI Use in Teaching, Learning, and Research Training

https://aiandeducation.mit.edu/report/

How “McMansioning” Is Killing American Colleges [ Business Explains The World ]