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ATHENS, Ga. — Leslie De Santos furrowed her brow as she read the passage.

The four sentences contained terms such as “litigation,” “adjudicative,” “jurisdiction” and “identifiers,” and the last sentence, 23 words long, included two semicolons.

It wasn’t an assignment from an advanced course in legal studies. The passage was from the free application for federal student aid, otherwise known as FAFSA, an integral — and often hated — part of the lives of high school seniors who aspire to college.

Cluttered with confusing terminology, it and other densely worded documents are a surprisingly significant barrier to students — especially students who don’t have college counselors to help them or parents with higher educations.

“There are a lot of words that I have no idea what it means,” said De Santos, a freshman at the University of Georgia. “For the most part, it’s hard to understand this.”

If there were a ranking of the most complex and convoluted higher education forms and documents, FAFSA might be No. 1. Critics say it’s why some students are derailed in the application process. Half of high school seniors last year didn’t complete the FAFSA form, according to the National College Access Network, which estimates that they’re collectively forgoing $24 billion a year in financial help.

But the FAFSA form is not alone among documents so bafflingly worded that they create obstacles in the college experience and invite mistakes.

Related: Needing public support, academics try to make their work more clear

University administrators and officials across the country continue to produce instructions and forms — from handbooks and guides to syllabuses, websites and policies about everything from academic honesty to sexual harassment — that are puzzles of almost comically complex words and pedantic phrases.

“Universities have been slow to realize the importance of plain language,” said Deborah Bosley, a former professor at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte who owns and runs The Plain Language Group, which helps clients communicate more clearly.

“There is a sense that if you’re in an academic environment, writing has to be complex so that it reflects the intellectual level of a university, which in my way of thinking is totally the opposite of what they should have been doing.”

Self-absorbed academic lingo has long been the subject of parody. There’s even a jargon generator, a tongue-in-cheek guide for academics to insert such words into their work as “actionable,” “blended learning,” “stackable credentials” and “assessment-driven,” and a game, EduBabble Bingo, in which players “win” when they find enough of these words or terms to fill a row.

Related: Some experts have a new idea to help students afford college: More federal loans

No less an authority than Calvin and Hobbes postulated the academic treatise “The Dynamics of Interbeing and Monological Imperatives in ‘Dick and Jane’: A Study in Psychic Transrelational Gender Modes.”

But as comical as it can sound, the impenetrable language of universities is a serious problem for students because it adds another layer of obstruction as they try to navigate higher education, said Bosley.

She shared a particularly confusing paragraph from the UNC Charlotte website that includes acronyms, abbreviations, phrases out of context and even a typo: “If you were paid a Pell grant on a full-time enrollment and your [sic] are not able to confirm attendance in all courses, your aid will be adjusted to the amount of the credits confirmed and the calculation will be based on the last date of attendance for the confirmed classes.”

Like Bosley, Zach Taylor is a champion of common language at colleges. The third-year Ph.D. student at the University of Texas has found that college literature and websites often are written at the reading level of college seniors and graduate students.

“Almost nothing is written with a student audience in mind,” Taylor said. Much of it is “for institutional communication between practitioners and not for students and not for their families.” Freshmen, for example, are referred to as “prospective or aspiring undergraduate first-year students.”

Related: Even at elite colleges lauded for their generosity, some students take on debt

But how can schools fix the problem? Writing in the active voice, using more concise grammar and bullet points, explaining abbreviations and acronyms and simply subbing the word “you” for wordy descriptions of students would make institutional information clearer, Taylor said.

The University of Georgia has taken its own step to address this problem.

Starting this past academic year, it produced a handbook (there’s also an online version) that was mailed to more than 400 incoming freshmen who were the first in their families to go to college, using simple and clear English.

Also translated into Spanish, Korean and Chinese, it includes a glossary of academic terms and acronyms that might be unfamiliar to most new students.

“I didn’t know what a bursar was for the longest time. Some of these things, they just don’t seem like regular English,” said Ramatulai Jagne, a first-year student whose parents are from Gambia. “It’s not like the ‘university payment center.’ It’s the bursar’s office.”

The words and terms in UGA’s new handbook include “co-requisite” and “prerequisite,” “CRN” (course reference number), “FERPA” (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act), “registrar,” “hardship withdrawal,” “matriculation” and even “dean’s list.”

Related: A big reason rural students never go to college: Colleges don’t recruit them

“That is such a step in the right direction,” Taylor said. “Mad props to Georgia for doing that.”

The idea began with UGA transfer student coordinator Judy Iakovou, who remembered questions she received from students when she worked as an academic adviser in a freshman residence hall.

“Once a student gets on campus, they get so much information so early in the process that they can be overwhelmed, and so reaching them in advance so they know, watch for this information, is going to be an important piece of that,” Iakovou said.

It’s a small start that is up against an ingrained culture. But there are other signs of change.

When he encountered the word “domicile” in a financial aid section for “certain categories of foreign students” on the Texas A&M University website, for example, Taylor worked with the school to rewrite “You must hold a visa that enables you to domicile in the United States,” to “You must hold a visa that allows you to live in the United States.”

Information too complex for the average student to read “is going to diminish the likelihood that they will be able to appropriately enroll in the university,” Bosley said.

De Santos, the UGA freshman, said parents are from Mexico, so English isn’t their first language. She had to fill out most of the admission, enrollment and financial aid forms herself, which she said required numerous phone calls to the financial aid office and searching for the meaning of words and phrases.

“A lot of stuff,” she said, “when I was applying to college, I had to look it up.”

Wordy websites

Here are two examples of confusing language that can be found on some college and university websites, followed by an example of how one university has rewritten its financial aid pages.

UNC Charlotte financial aid website

If the Office of Student Financial Aid does not receive the Confirmation of Attendance form by the 15 day deadline, ALL of your federal funding may be returned to the particular programs. If the professors confirm attendance but no specific date is given, we will prorate your financial aid based on the midpoint of the term. If you were paid a Pell grant on a full-time enrollment and your [sic] are not able to confirm attendance in all courses, your aid will be adjusted to the amount of the credits confirmed and the calculation will be based on the last date of attendance for the confirmed classes.

Sexual assault reporting guidelines, Marywood University

Stalking is defined as engaging in a course of conduct or repeatedly committing acts towards another person, including following the person without proper authority, under circumstances which demonstrate either an intent to place the other person in reasonable fear of bodily injury or to cause substantial emotional distress to the other person or engaging in a course of conduct or repeatedly communicating to another person under circumstances which demonstrate or communicate either an intent to place such other person in reasonable fear of bodily injury or to cause substantial emotional distress to the other person.

Texas A&M University financial aid website

Passage as it appeared before the university changed it at the suggestion of University of Texas doctoral student Zach Taylor:

Financial aid is federal, state, institutional and private fund(s) used to assist eligible students in funding their education. Financial aid can be a combination of scholarships, grants, loans and work study. Scholarships and grants are considered “free money” and require no repayment. Loans and work study are considered self-help aid because they require additional commitment from students. Most loans require repayment when a student becomes enrolled less than half time or graduates. Work study includes part-time employment either on or off campus with an employer who participates in the program.

Passage as it reads now:

Financial aid is money that helps you pay for college. Financial aid can be a combination of scholarships, grants, loans and work study.

• Scholarships and grants are “free money” that you do not need to repay.
• Loans need to be paid back when you enroll less than half-time or you graduate.
• A part-time job can also help you pay for school and living expenses.

This story about college student success was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our higher education newsletter.

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More than three years since the COVID-19 pandemic upended the higher education landscape, student enrollment in higher education is just leveling off following a period of double-digit declines. It's a continuation of a worrying trendline. Since 2010, 3 million fewer people than expected have enrolled in college, according to data compiled by the Sorenson Impact Center at the University of Utah. The combination of declining birth rates and a rapidly aging population means that colleges and universities face the potential for a perilous drop in the number of traditional-aged students who for years have been the backbone of higher education.

Over the past two decades, the "and-ers" have fast become the norm for students in higher education, regardless of age or educational background. According to data from the Georgetown University Center for Education and the Workforce from 2018, nearly 70% of all college students hold jobs, and nearly half of these working learners are putting in 15-to-35 hours per week. While these numbers are likely to have shifted in the years since this study, they offer a glimpse into the continued reality of working students. Though working while in school is often necessary to pay the rent and cover tuition, it can often take a toll on those who work to support themselves and cover the cost of college. More than half of students who work 15 hours per week or more end up with GPAs of C or worse — and students with poor grades often need more time to earn a degree and may struggle to graduate at all. The bigger question here, however, is whether their failure to thrive is more about their complicated contexts or our inability to offer policies, practices, models, and modalities that better meet their needs.

To serve "and-ers" well, colleges have to do more than just offer a little extra flexibility through night classes or online programs. Colleges must retool their educational offerings, programs, and support services to better serve this growing population. Colleges can help working learners succeed by providing flexible schedules, personalized pathways to degrees, stackable credentials, and wraparound support services. They can also work with employers to create partnerships that offer tuition assistance, job training, and career advancement opportunities. In doing so, they can create opportunities for these students to not just survive but thrive in their personal and professional lives.

Higher education is already undergoing a healthy culture shift to meet these students where they are — and there are plenty of promising new models to show for it. Over the past decade, Northern Kentucky University has built and fine-tuned a work-based learning partnership with national nonprofit Education at Work. This program enables full-time students to gain professional experience working for Fortune 500 employers. The combination of hourly wages earned on the job — and tuition assistance benefits provided by the employers — substantially offsets the cost of college, while helping students develop valuable skills sought by employers after they finish college.

While it's important to give students access to more meaningful types of employment opportunities, it's just as critical to support those who have existing jobs. City Colleges of Chicago, a large urban community college system, has built a homegrown support model in collaboration with nonprofit One Million Degrees to serve its students, many of whom are financially independent or work. This holistic support program blends academic and non-academic coaching services, apprenticeship opportunities, scholarship aid, and intensive academic advising to help striving students succeed.

Meeting the needs of "and-ers'' isn't just about work. It's about helping them to balance the complex array of "and" challenges. For example, Education Design Lab organized a "Single Moms Success" Design Challenge to mobilize community colleges that are finding new and innovative ways to make the higher education experience more inclusive for parents. National University (NU), where I serve as president, partners with nonprofit InsideTrack to deliver one-on-one success coaching that works holistically with each student to help understand their needs beyond the classroom and develop an education plan that works for them.

These are just a handful of examples of how colleges can support "and-ers." The most successful colleges and universities of the future will be those that embrace the potential of what we at NU call "whole-human education." It's about ensuring that every learner feels a deep sense of belonging that comes from knowing that their institution is not just a virtual or physical place for learning, but an ally that will fight with them to overcome obstacles and work with them to make the most of their educational journeys.

Retooling higher education to meet the needs of working learners can help institutions survive and thrive in the years ahead. By doing so, they can help create a more equitable — and accessible — system of higher education that helps more "and-ers" cross the commencement stage.

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A high school graduate warned Dr. Phil’s audience on Tuesday that education is dividing classrooms into oppressors and oppressed students based upon their ancestry, arguing such curriculum should be banned.

A mother named Alma who raised children of mixed White and Latino heritage warned that critical race theory is teaching children radical ideas about race and politics without parents’ knowledge. 

"There’s this group of kids that are oppressors, and there’s this group of kids that are oppressed," she said. "That really was troubling for my daughter." 

After noting that their own family have different complexions, she said that she and her more tanned complexion daughter would be labeled as oppressed, while on the other hand, "there’s these people, the half of the family – the sister, the brother, the father - that are oppressors."

CRITICAL RACE THEORY TAUGHT TO FUTURE MILITARY LEADERS AT U.S. MILITARY ACADEMIES, ACCORDING TO NEW STUDY

Dr. Phil then played footage of Alma’s daughter warning about racialized education she encountered in her own California high school.

"I am a latest high school graduate from a school located in California. I was recently put into an Ethnic Studies class my senior year of high school," she said. "This class was teaching us about how minorities are oppressed."

She added, "Because of the color of my skin, because I’m considered to be a Latina, and I am more Brown that I will never be successful like my White peers. People like my dad or my sister or my brother would have more prosperity, just because of the color of their skin."

She then noted that it was awkward to be of even partial White ancestry in a room full of people being told they are in a racial hierarchy.

"The fact of the matter was, I was the only person who was considerably half White, half Mexican, and the rest of my peers were minorities," she said. "They were all people of color learning about how we’re all put in a hierarchy, and we’ll never be successful."

CRITICAL RACE THEORY TAUGHT AT MANY OF AMERICA’S 50 MOST ELITE PRIVATE K-12 SCHOOLS, ACCORDING TO NEW STUDY

"When it comes to Ethnic Studies, I believe that it is a course that shouldn’t be taught. It should be banned," she said.

Elsewhere in the episode, a teacher named Kali who fled California for Florida warned about the same "Ethnic Studies" curriculum in her former home state.

"In California, right now, there is a push for this class called ‘Ethnic Studies.’ It’s going to be a requirement for graduation," she warned. 

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"The teacher that taught Ethnic Studies at my site had the same platform that I was using, so I was able to see all of her lessons. It was shocking, what I saw. They have this term called ‘hegemony’ in critical race theory, which means that America was built to only help the White man," she said. "All of the institutions were put in there to benefit the White man and to oppress everybody else, and so, our students are learning about these concepts. It is dividing America based on race. It’s hyper-race focused. Whenever you see hyper-race focus, you’re going to see racism along with it."

From a longtime resident and a latest transplant, these two nonprofit CEOs are excited to celebrate the passage and signing of the new education budget.

This legislative session was one of significant progress for our state’s youth.

It was also an historic year for representation of queer, trans and nonbinary legislators — demonstrating to young people that they can become anything.

This legislation provides more than $2 billion in much-needed additional spending, going towards improving health, wellbeing, and academic outcomes for the youngest Minnesotans. These bold investments will provide crucial support and resources to kids as they learn, grow, and build their future — as well as Minnesota’s. 

This investment also comes at a critical time for our youth. In latest years, much emphasis has been placed on learning loss — a very real phenomenon that both exposed and exacerbated some of our deepest institutional inequities. In the case of the pandemic, the blessing was in the lesson. 

COVID-19 shone a light on the importance of young people’s health and wellbeing, which is foundational to academic success and arguably just as urgent given the backdrop of a youth mental health crisis. The ongoing ramifications of social isolation, distance learning, and a racial reckoning has weighed heavily on Minnesota’s kids and adults alike. And for our children and teens who live in marginalized communities, those impacts are often more pronounced. 

That is why we believe this education bill provides a big step forward in addressing the complex obstacles facing kids and teens, including mental health challenges, eating disorders, and the impacts of social media use on young brains. 

The Legislature’s work this year will provide meals and menstrual products to kids who need them; end exclusionary discipline for the youngest learners; increase the number of teachers of color and Native American teachers; and provide schools with additional mental health supports.

These are prime examples of how taking holistic approaches to supporting youth can help Boost their lives in myriad ways. Smart, forward-thinking policies will Boost life not just for Minnesota’s young women and girls, but all youth across the state.

By ensuring all our kids — no matter their background — receive adequate nutrition, the health products they need, opportunities to recreate and socialize, and role models who look like them, we can begin to address Minnesota’s deep racial disparities and raise a generation of kids who will fight racism and make the world a better place.

The education bill represents an important and timely step forward for Minnesota’s kids and all of us who care for and support them. We extend our sincere gratitude, admiration, and respect for the lawmakers, staff, and advocates who have championed much of this legislation for years, if not decades, and worked tirelessly to bring it to the finish line. 

At this critical time for Minnesota’s youth, we hope state lawmakers will build on this progress when they come together in February for the next legislative session, continuing to invest boldly in our kids’ health and wellbeing as a foundation for academic and life success. 

(Photo: venimo/Shutterstock.com)

There are lots of conversations being had about the job market and employee retention. What are employees looking for and what are employers willing to offer? Turns out, a lot of employees want career growth and education offered from their employers, whether that is tuition assistance, workshops, or trainings.

John Baker, CEO and founder of D2L, on online learning platform, shares his thoughts on the critical role education plays in the success of employees, especially in a modern digital workplace.

What role does education play in employee success?

A big one – high quality education has a real impact in landing the right job, success in that role, and boosts success with career growth.

Corporate learning and education have always provided employees with the skills they need to grow in their careers, take on new challenges, and close skill gaps within their organization. Recently, however, a more pressing need for it has developed, as the rate of change in the employment market, fueled by technology and specialization, means that skills are expiring more rapidly, and new roles are being created all the time. For individuals, ongoing learning is key to not only staying knowledgeable, but also competitive.

Employees are more satisfied and thus more productive when they continue to learn – and there’s a growing expectation that they do so. Data from the World Economic Forum shows that, whereas in 2018 only 65% of business leaders expected employees to pick up new skills on the job, by 2020 a full 94% of them expected it. As a report from PwC put it recently, “to upskill or not to upskill is no longer the question” – the question is how.

And employee education builds more than just new skills, it makes work a better, more fulfilling place. In a recent global survey of CEOs, PwC found that 95% of those heading organizations with advanced upskilling programs felt that upskilling resulted in stronger corporate culture and employee engagement, while 93% of the same group said they saw improved talent acquisition and retention. That is, not only are current employees better skilled, but so are their coworkers.

What can businesses do to ensure their employees are receiving the best kind of education for career success?

In five words: Create a culture of learning.

Creating a culture of learning throughout the organization helps employers get the most out of their employees and in turn, increases retention and worker satisfaction. However, this does not mean simply creating training programs and then sitting back to wait for things to improve. A culture of learning means actively making learning a business priority, and is critical in driving organizational growth and in meeting targets.

What does this look like in action? First, employers need to be intentional about creating a supportive learning environment where employees feel safe and empowered to learn and grow. Mistakes must be embraced to help growth. Second, employees must have a voice: What are their goals from Learning and Development (L&D) programs? Creating and open dialogue with employees will help avoid incorrect assumptions about their goals.

Ideally, learning can become part of the flow of work wherever possible – a part of the everyday work experience. But it might need to begin more intentionally, with specific days or hours of paid time off set aside for employee learning. Flexibility is key for working learners, and this may mean implementing specific technologies that help facilitate multiple schedules, as well as a variety of goals and individual interests.

A company filled with people that are learning – instead of know-it-alls – is going to outperform and attract the right talent. Ultimately, a successful culture of learning will help employees thrive and build a stronger, more resilient, and more innovative workforce and organization.

What are your keys to success for business leaders looking to ensure their companies and employees succeed in the modern digital workplace?

Two things: Technology and durable skills.

Often when CEOs and leaders spend time thinking about how to Boost productivity, the main lever considered these days is automation. But there is another that is overlooked: upskilling. We lift the productivity of our organizations by investing in people. This is critical during tight labor market conditions, and it enables us to more efficiently grow by giving people the skills they need to fill the high-demand roles and move out of the roles that are disappearing. This lever is one that needs to be strengthened with the right investments in learning.

It starts by having the right technology in place – that is critical to ensuring employees can access the continuous learning they need, when they need it, and that it can be directly applicable to their goals — whether it’s expanded knowledge, upskilling, or certifications. This also means that the technology must be future-proofed and flexible enough to maintain a successful strategy for years as skills and learning change.

Read more: Why every employee benefits program should include financial education

And while hard skills development is necessary in many areas, skills like communication, teamwork and adaptability are vital to an employee’s success as well as that of any organization. Hybrid work environments are here to stay, and employees and leaders alike must exercise greater empathy and understanding across distances – something that often needs reinforcing through courses and practice. The payoff from better human understanding within a workplace is a more resilient organization. And you want a resilient organization. According to a 2021 Deloitte Global Resilience Report, resilient organizations are prepared, adaptable, collaborative, trustworthy, and responsible. These attributes are critical for helping any organization stay grounded in an unpredictable economy like ours.

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