College students are back. Here are 4 issues to watch on campuses.

Fall term usually signals a fresh start on college campuses. But continued protests over the Israel-Hamas war, and the related resignation of another president in the past month, are reminders of how tough the spring semester was. Add enrollment and financial aid processing concerns, and you get a sense of the issues that some schools – and students and families – may contend with in the coming year.

In New York, Columbia University started classes Tuesday with dozens of pro-Palestinian student picketers blocking a campus gate, and a campus statue, Alma Mater, being doused with red paint. None of that so far has been on the order of what the school faced in the spring, when it was the site of mass arrests. Demonstrations have happened elsewhere in the United States recently, too, including at the University of Michigan and Cornell University. Protesters continue to want schools to divest from companies with connections to Israel.  

“I think that students will find a way to express themselves, but ... many institutions changed their policies and security protocols during the summer,” says Joe Sallustio, a former administrator, and host and co-founder of the “EdUp Experience” podcast. 

Changes to campus security are one way collegiate life will be different this year. Here’s more on that and other campus topics to keep an eye on this year.

How are Israel-Hamas war protests affecting campus life?

A few weeks before students returned to school, Columbia’s president resigned. Minouche Shafik is one of a trio of women leaders –the others from Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania – who left their positions in 2024, a year that included scrutiny of their handling of antisemitism and protests. Backlash ignited after the heads of Harvard, Penn, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology faced intense questioning from a congressional committee in December. Dr. Shafik appeared before the committee separately in April.

Columbia is among a plethora of schools that updated student codes of conduct and tightened security measures in anticipation of more protests and campus disruptions. The school now requires an official university ID to get onto campus or inside any building. Those not affiliated with Columbia must fill out guest registrations. The University of Southern California instituted the same policy and limited vehicle traffic onto the campus to two entrances at certain points of the day. Other campuses, such as the University of Pennsylvania, won’t allow amplification devices, chalking, and light projections.

“The election and war in the Middle East are divisive topics that will continue to stir emotions, and many will protest. However, I expect colleges and universities to run much tighter and have less tolerance for open, elongated engagement with protesters,” says Dr. Sallustio.

Caitlin Ochs/Reuters

A woman refuses a flyer as protesters gather in front of Columbia University in New York City, Aug. 25, 2024.

The American Association of University Professors has said that new policies, some of which require students to inform when they plan to protest, severely limit speech and freedom of expression.

Many universities have lifted suspensions for students who participated in encampments and protests last spring, while others have left those decisions up to local law enforcement agencies.  

Will the FAFSA form work in 2024?

Perhaps the biggest problem facing colleges and universities are the continued hiccups from the failed rollout of a revamped Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) last year. The application was delayed in its release for months, and also had technical glitches. All of that delayed families and colleges from making decisions, and left students without knowing if they could afford to go to schools of their choice. Some students are still waiting to get award letters and have not matriculated. Some students with non-U.S. parents, or parents who didn’t have Social Security numbers, had trouble filling out the form.

The U.S. Department of Education has overhauled the system again for the 2025-2026 school year. It will conduct beta tests in October and November with real students, affecting thousands of families in total. It plans to have the new application ready no later than Dec. 1. Senior officials from the Education Department have said that by doing this phase testing, they are more likely to uncover issues that they can have fixed by the deadline for rolling it out.

Dr. Sallustio says that the FAFSA situation has caused major problems in budgets for midsize schools, and will result in program and technology cuts.

“A lot of schools are waiting to see how many students show up. Typically you would know already, so they’re still waiting to see that class solidify,” he says. “The revenue line for a lot of midsize to smaller institutions is going to be a lot less than they thought it would be. So now you’ve got to figure out what you’re going to do with your expense line.”

He predicts the FAFSA problems will affect next school year also, and that there will be cuts, possibly to administrators, faculty, and staff. Student-to-staff ratios will be affected, because fewer students means fewer employees.

“It’s a good time to look at program cuts, because you have the value of a college degree that’s in question,” Dr. Sallustio says.

Some schools are also seeing the rollback of gains they had made in diverse student enrollment as a result of the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision ending affirmative action. The highly selective Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced that it experienced sharp declines in racial diversity in its incoming class, and that they are directly tied to the recent high-court decision. The number of Black students, for example, fell from 13% to 5%. At Yale University, the percentage of Black/African American students held steady. The flip side is that historically Black colleges and universities have experienced enrollment increases, and in some cases, record applications.

Colleges brace for the coming enrollment cliff 

Enrollment issues from FAFSA forms or affirmative action’s end have nothing to do with the enrollment cliff that is predicted for 2025. Fewer young Americans are attending college, with the number of high school grads expected to decline in the coming years. Fewer students believe the expensive price tag of a college education is worth it. And fewer international students are studying in the U.S. American colleges first saw enrollment declines during the pandemic, but 2023 brought a boost. Those gains are expected to be lost. 

In the first part of 2024, about one college or university per week on average announced that it was closing or merging, according to the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association. In a report with data from 2004 to 2020, SHEEO said that more than 100,000 students experienced school closures without adequate notice or a teach-out plan. The result was that 71.3% of those students were less likely to reenroll at another school within a month, and 50.1% less likely to earn a credential than students who didn’t experience a closure. Schools that closed abruptly recently have included University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Notre Dame College in Cleveland, and the College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York.

Many students and parents are left trying to recover tuition paid to schools and get records, such as transcripts, released. Occasionally, a school finds its way back to solvency.

What role will artificial intelligence play on campus?

As artificial intelligence takes root, faculty members at colleges across the U.S. have been concerned (think cheating) and cautious about its use. Students are embracing it faster than faculty; administrators are using it as a tool for admissions. And at least one English professor argues that AI’s arrival could make the first-year writing course obsolete. 

As the technology becomes more a part of the conversation, some at universities are seeing how they can benefit from it. AI needs guardrails, and educators should be involved in creating parameters for acceptable use, says Kyle Jensen, English professor at Arizona State University and director of its writing programs.

Dr. Jensen says it’s time to accept the fact that AI will affect the way people write in the future.

“If you accept that as a premise, then you can start to ask yourself the question, ‘OK, how do we teach students to use it responsibly in a way that is consistent with all the research that we’ve conducted to this point?’” he says. 

The focus needs to be on best practices and being creative about responding to the challenges that the technology presents, he adds.