News

In 2020, the Regents of the University of California voted to stop considering SAT scores (or ACT scores) in undergraduate admissions. A group of UC faculty have recently signed open letters calling on the Regents to reverse this decision.

A new Cold War is emerging and in turn a Neo-Academic Cold War that reflects emerging geopolitical rivalries. The context of the Neo-Academic Cold War is different from the previous Cold War which featured bipolar competition between the U.S. and the Soviet Union for military superiority and spheres of influence that included distinct scientific and academic ecosystems. This has given way to a multipolar and complex world of rivalries and semi-autonomous silos of transnational science cooperation and science diplomacy.

In an analysis published in University World News, John Aubrey Douglass, Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Studies in Higher Education (CSHE), addressed the impact of the new federal provisions limiting loans for graduate education in the United States.

Douglass explains how these changes “will likely come at a cost to the economy in terms of fewer professionals across a wide array of fields, as well as further erosion in socioeconomic mobility, for which access to graduate education is a key component.”

In this article, The Economist looked at international trends with declining math skills and falling levels of literacy for undergraduates.” A major question for colleges and universities is not just how they will respond to a growing pool of underprepared applicants, but whether they are themselves prepared to continue enforcing high expectations.” The college grading system is central to these concerns.

The LA Times interviewed CSHE Senior Researcher, Igor Chirikov, who co-led a large study of undergraduate AI use.  The article in the LA Times, "Inside college AI cheating wars: extreme surveillance, false accusations, jarring confusion," addresses the prevalence of the technology in the classroom.

To access the research paper:

As the University of California Academic Senate deliberates whether to recommend reinstating standardized testing for freshman applicants, research from the Center for Studies in Higher Education (CSHE) is playing a central role in the systemwide conversation.

Our recent ROPS article Broadening Our Perspective Concerning America’s Education Attainment: Growth, Progress, and Data Gaps, by Michael Kirst and Victor Chan, was featured in Education Week. The media coverage dives deep into the findings on American educational attainment.

BERKELEY, CA — A new study led by Igor Chirikov, a senior researcher at UC Berkeley’s Center for Studies in Higher Education (CSHE) reveals that two-thirds of undergraduates at major U.S. public research universities utilized generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) during the 2023–2024 academic year. Both AI adoption and AI-assisted misconduct vary dramatically depending on the student's academic field. 

CSHE senior researcher Igor Chirikov was recently interviewed by KCRA 3 News to discuss the findings of his study linking food security to higher education success.

The segment highlights a new working paper co-authored by Igor Chirikov and Jesse Rothstein. The study, The Impact of Nutrition Assistance on College Student Success, offers some of the most precise data to date on how California's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—known as CalFresh—directly impacts academic outcomes.

Berkeley, May 4, 2026 – Community college students who receive CalFresh during their first year of college are more likely to stay on track academically and return for a second year, according to a new working paper from the California Policy Lab and the Center for Studies in Higher Education.

Berkeley Talks, a Berkeley News podcast that features lectures and conversations at UC Berkeley, featured the Clark Kerr Lectures in their most recent episode "How the American university’s success led to its modern challenges." 

Listen to the episode: https://news.berkeley.edu/2026/05/01/berkeley-talks-the-american-univers...

BERKELEY, CA — A new research paper released by the Center for Studies in Higher Education (CSHE) at the University of California, Berkeley, reveals that the common narrative of American educational stagnancy is misleading.

BERKELEY — CSHE Senior Researcher Anne MacLachlan was recently featured in the Daily Californian, providing analysis on a new U.S. Department of Education proposal aimed at curbing federal loans for "low-value" college degrees.

The proposed rule would cut off federal funding for programs where graduates earn less than the average high school graduate. While the Department frames this as a safeguard against predatory debt, MacLachlan warned that a strictly market-driven metric may overlook the broader importance of the humanities and social sciences.