It feels cliché to talk of inflection points. And yet it’s hard to look out across our 2026 Trends Report newly expanded for 2026 — and talk of much else. 

“For future historians, the period of 2023-26 will be seen as an era of major upheaval,” write the editors of The Chronicle Review, by way of introducing a forum of scholars you’ll find in our new issue. “There will be a before and an after.” To put a finer point on it: The decisions made in 2026 may well determine what “after” looks like.

Three powerful forces bore down on higher education in 2025. The long-hyped “demographic cliff” finally arrived, triggering a sharp and steady decline in the ranks of traditional-age students across much of the country. The ever-more-rapid encroachment of artificial intelligence rewired expectations of what college is for — and, more broadly, what learning means. And the depredations of the Trump administration and likeminded state lawmakers confronted the sector with an unprecedented moral and tactical test.

Those forces have left many colleges and universities on something of a precipice. 

Now, in 2026, so much is in the offing. There are questions that those colleges and their constituents can’t fully answer, only try to anticipate: How will AI mutate as it enters its agentic era? Will the political campaign to bring higher ed to heel abate? If it does, will the sector’s finances stabilize? We’re probing for answers, along with the sector we cover.

But in this year’s Trends Report, we’re digging instead into the most pivotal questions that the people who manage and work within higher education are asking themselves: How can we turn competitors into collaborators? What lies beyond the four-year degree? What’s the most prudent response to partisan distrust: fight or flight? It’s how these questions are answered — and how the answers will manifest as decisions — that will set a course for higher ed beyond this era of upheaval.

Our job here isn’t to tell you how to set that course; it’s to send cartographers out into the field to fill out the map. To that end, we’ve expanded the Trends Report this year: You’ll find more trends to watch, more insight from leaders and experts, and a look back at some of the themes we’ve identified in years past. We hope our work helps you step out of the realm of cliché and into the moment at hand. 

Reach us with your thoughts and suggestions at cheeditor@chronicle.com.

Brock Read

Deputy Managing Editor

Highlights From This Issue

THE TRENDS REPORT 2026

The Right’s Academic Civil War

By Len Gutkin

THE TRENDS REPORT 2026

Public Colleges Are Finally Learning to Share

By Lee Gardner

THE TRENDS REPORT 2026 | FORUM

Higher Ed Is at a Turning Point. 11 Scholars Predict What’s Next.

THE TRENDS REPORT 2026

The Self-Flagellating President

By Nell Gluckman

THE TRENDS REPORT 2026

The Coming Dual-Enrollment Wars

By Scott Carlson