Higher ed urged to flex
A commentary in Times Higher Education argued that learner heterogeneity should be treated as the default and that flexibility needs to be designed in, not tacked on as accommodation. The piece recommended structural changes to better serve diverse and first‑generation students rather than relying on case‑by‑case fixes. The argument frames flexibility as a design principle across curricula and student services. (timeshighereducation.com) (timeshighereducation.com)
A new pair of Times Higher Education commentaries argues colleges should stop treating flexibility as a special exception and start building it into the system. (timeshighereducation.com) In the first piece, published April 14, 2026, Singapore Management University’s Ivy Seow and Tamas Makany wrote that undergraduate cohorts now include students balancing work, caregiving and study across different life stages. They said flexibility should be a “foundational design principle” in course design and delivery. (timeshighereducation.com) In a second April 14 commentary, Times Higher Education contributor Lily Kong wrote that first-generation students are often asked to fit a rigid model built around students with more family knowledge of university systems. She called for institutions to redesign structures rather than rely on one-off accommodations. (timeshighereducation.com) The argument lands as colleges serve a student body that is older, more economically stretched and less uniform than the residential full-time model assumes. In the United States, 25.8 percent of undergraduates in 2019-20 were first-generation students, according to Postsecondary National Policy Institute data drawn from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study. (pnpi.org) That same fact sheet says first-generation students are concentrated in sectors built around access: 32.7 percent of students at public two-year institutions and 39.9 percent at for-profit institutions were first-generation in 2019-20. The commentary’s point is that a narrow timetable for classes, advising and assessment can miss a large share of the people higher education already enrolls. (pnpi.org) Seow and Makany’s prescription is structural: more choice in pacing, attendance, assessment and delivery, with flexibility designed at the start instead of added after a student struggles. They frame that shift around lifelong learning and reskilling, which bring more working adults back into undergraduate and professional study. (timeshighereducation.com) Kong’s piece makes the same case through first-generation students, who often have to decode academic rules, financial aid and campus norms without family experience to lean on. Earlier Times Higher Education guidance for staff has urged universities to “demystify” the institution for first-generation students rather than expect them to learn hidden rules on their own. (timeshighereducation.com 1) (timeshighereducation.com 2) Recent first-generation data points in the same direction. A Pell Institute fact sheet based on 2020 data says 71 percent of first-generation undergraduates worked while enrolled, averaging 22 hours a week, and 55.2 percent received Pell Grants in 2019-20. (pellinstitute.org) (pnpi.org) The commentaries do not present flexibility as lower standards. They present it as a design choice: clearer systems, more usable schedules and support services that match the students universities say they want to serve. (timeshighereducation.com 1) (timeshighereducation.com 2)
