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  • Houston ISD lays off, reassigns hundreds of teachers

    Houston ISD lays off, reassigns hundreds of teachers

    Dive Brief:

    • Houston Independent School District laid off 160 uncertified teachers and 54 staff members as part of “staff leveling” efforts “to align teachers with student enrollment,” according to a district announcement on Monday. Additionally, 232 teachers were reassigned to unfilled positions.
    • The district’s student enrollment data for the 2025-26 school year has yet to be released, though Houston ISD said in a February board meeting that it was conservatively budgeting for a decrease in enrollment of about 8,000 students, which would lead to a loss of $67 million in revenue.
    • At the same meeting, the district said it would consider a proposal this fall to close some schools in the 2026-27 school year. It cited a 30,000 student decline in Houston ISD’s enrollment over the last decade.

    Dive Insight:

    The major staffing shift for Houston ISD “is a standard process that ensures the most effective teachers are leading our classrooms,” said Trey Serna, a district spokesperson, in a Monday video announcement.

    When staffing adjustments are needed, Texas’ largest school district primarily considers a teacher’s performance and certification, Serna said. 

    The move comes as the district has recently reported early successes during a state takeover aimed at turning around low-performing schools.  Superintendent Mike Miles, who was appointed by the state in June 2023, reported a sharp increase in A- and B-rated schools in the 2024-25 school year and has promised that all Houston ISD schools will fall into A- and B-rated categories by 2027.

    Adjustments to budgets and staffing due to enrollment declines are a challenge many public schools are facing nationwide. 

    If declining enrollments persist, education economics researchers foresee more layoffs and hiring freezes for districts moving forward. This, they said, could lead to a broad reversal in teacher shortages. 

    Education finance experts have suggested that while districts increasingly consider teacher layoffs, they should focus on firing ineffective and uncertified educators first. 

    In September, Florida’s Orange County Public Schools announced mass teacher reassignments as it faces a sharp, unexpected decline in enrollment this school year. Because Orange County Public Schools had 157 vacancies due to a hiring freeze, Superintendent Maria Vazquez said she was hopeful the district could retain most of its instructional staff.

    Texas’ Austin Independent School District is also moving ahead with plans to consolidate some of its schools amid ongoing enrollment declines. Superintendent Matias Segura said in a Wednesday Instagram video that the district will publish its first draft for consolidation and boundary changes by Friday evening.   

    “It won’t be perfect, and it isn’t final,” Segura said of the draft plan. “Our goal is the same one our community shares: every family deserves an excellent neighborhood school that is vibrant, well-resourced, and ready to meet each child’s needs.”

    The district plans to collect community feedback and refine the plan before the school board votes on Nov. 20.



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  • New Jersey City University and Kean University sign official deal to merge

    New Jersey City University and Kean University sign official deal to merge

    Dive Brief:

    • New Jersey City University has signed a definitive agreement to become part of nearby Kean University, the institutions announced in a joint press release Wednesday. 
    • The agreement — approved unanimously by both universities’ governing boards — is subject to accreditor approval by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education as well as by state and federal regulators. Officials expect the merger to be completed by July. 
    • Once complete, NJCU will become “Kean Jersey City.” The two public institutions signed a letter of intent to merge in May after recent years of financial and governance turmoil at NJCU.

    Dive Insight:

    The agreement marks a major milestone for NJCU, which a state-appointed monitor directed to find a financial partner early in 2024. 

    Under the merger terms, Kean will take on NJCU’s assets and liabilities. It will also honor NJCU students’ academic credits, need-based financial aid commitments and merit scholarships if they transition to Kean. Once they do, students will pay Kean’s tuition and fee prices, which amounted to $15,300 for full-time undergraduate students in the 2025-26 academic year.

    A steering committee will oversee the next steps of the merger, including the complicated work of academic and operational integration, as well as navigating regulatory and governmental reviews. 

    As part of the agreement, NJCU students will gain access to Kean’s student services, clubs and organizations after the merger. 

    As for student sports, the agreement establishes a separate advisory committee to look at athletic programming at NJCU post-merger. The university currently competes in more than a dozen NCAA Division III sports, including men’s basketball, women’s softball, and men’s and women’s volleyball and track and field. The committee is expected to make its final report to Kean’s president in December.

    As part of the fiscal 2026 state budget, New Jersey lawmakers lined up $10 million for Kean to help fund its merger with NJCU. The money is to help with feasibility studies, planning and legal work as the two institutions integrate. 

    NJCU’s board voted in March to pursue a merger with Kean. The move came after years of financial distress followed by recovery and turnaround work led by Andrés Acebo, who joined NJCU as interim president in January 2023 before being named permanent president this September. 

    About six months prior to his appointment, NJCU had declared a financial emergency.  Declining enrollment and funding shortfalls led the university to increase scholarships, add academic programs, and spend more on student services and real estate expansions. Those moves failed to turn enrollment around and “instead served to dramatically increase NJCU’s expenses,” New Jersey’s comptroller said in 2023. 

    But by fall 2024, Fitch Ratings lifted the NJCU’s outlook from negative to stable, with analysts citing “significant progress toward achieving fiscal balance despite continued pressure on student enrollment.” The improvements were the product of both state aid and cost cutting at the institution. 

    In fall 2023, NJCU’s student headcount stood at 5,833 students, down 27% from 2018 levels, according to federal data. By fall 2024, the university’s total enrollment fell another 6% year over year, though first-year, full-time students grew by 3% and transfers surged 28%,  NJ.com reported.

    In a statement Wednesday, Acebo said the merger with Kean represents “a significant milestone in a process designed to secure the future of our institution and the communities we have proudly served for nearly a century.”

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  • Test yourself on the past week’s K-12 news

    Test yourself on the past week’s K-12 news

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    How well did you keep up with this week’s developments in K-12 education? To find out, take our five-question quiz below. Then, share your score by tagging us on social media with #K12DivePopQuiz.

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  • Inside North Carolina’s direct admissions program

    Inside North Carolina’s direct admissions program

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    This fall, North Carolina is one of the latest states rolling out a direct admission program that offers high school seniors acceptance to a range of public and private colleges. 

    Through direct admissions, colleges proactively admit students based on high school academic performance metrics such as GPA, SAT scores, or the amount of credits they received. 

    Around the start of the school year, more than 62,000 public high school seniors in North Carolina were offered direct admission to select colleges through the NC College Connect Program. Eleven of the University of North Carolina System’s 16 colleges, 29 private colleges and all 58 of the state’s community colleges are participating. 

    The UNC System first piloted NC College Connect last year in partnership with state agencies, the governor’s office and North Carolina’s community college system. The system launched the program to increase access to higher education in the state, Shun Robertson, UNC’s senior vice president for strategy and policy, said in an email. 

    For many high school seniors, “the process of applying to college, transferring between institutions, and navigating the maze of financial aid feels like an insurmountable series of hurdles,” said Robertson. “Eliminating these barriers has been a high priority.”

    Over the past decade, direct admissions policies have increased the likelihood that in-state students both apply to college and apply to more colleges, said John Lane, vice president for academic affairs at the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association, in an email. In turn, that shift has effectively increased college enrollment, he said.

    “Direct admissions policies and programs are impactful because they eliminate the complications and uncertainties of longstanding college application processes,” said Lane. “Instead, students are proactively admitted.”

    UNC’s program

    The UNC System piloted its direct admissions initiative last fall and notified over 70,000 high school seniors with GPAs of 2.8 or higher of their eligibility for the program, Robertson said. 

    Those seniors could apply to six UNC institutions and all 58 state community colleges for the 2025-26 academic year by sharing on an online portal their email address, their potential major, and when they’d like to start college, he said. 

    UNC System officials haven’t been able to review outcome data yet for the pilot program, a spokesperson said. But over 5,000 students responded to the letter during the pilot, the spokesperson said. 

    The system simplified the program this fall. Students won’t have to formally apply to get into one of the colleges on their list, rather they are provided direct admission to institutions based on their GPA and whether they meet the program’s requirements, Robertson said. Then they just need to submit a program form to accept their admission, he said. 

    Students accepting admission to community colleges must still fill out applications, but they will already be admitted, according to the initiative’s website. 

    The program also expanded to include private colleges in the state and added more UNC institutions, said Robertson. The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, the system’s highly selective flagship, remains excluded from the program.

    Some of the private institutions in the program have additional direct admission qualification requirements, such as foreign language course requirements. 

    UNC System officials hope direct admissions will help the state’s institutions enrollment numbers long term by tapping into a growing college-aged student population. 

    Like most of the country, North Carolina is expected to see a decline in high school graduates between 2025 and 2030, according to a report last year from the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education. However, that pool of students is expected to grow again in North Carolina after that year. 

    WICHE predicts that North Carolina will be one of 12 states, along with the District of Columbia, to have growing numbers of high school students between 2023 and 2041. Overall, North Carolina should see a 6% increase in high school graduates over that period, per WICHE projections.

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  • Should you give equal voice to all perspectives?

    Should you give equal voice to all perspectives?

    Journalists are often told to be objective and to tell both sides of a story. They are taught to seek multiple perspectives. This means that when reporters interview an expert about any given topic, they are encouraged to find another source with a different opinion to make it “fair” and “balanced”. 

    Journalists also know that conflict makes a story more interesting and that gets more eyeballs or ears which allows their news organizations to sell more ads and subscriptions. 

    But research any topic and you will find disagreements among scientists, ecologists, business leaders, politicians and everyday people. In other words you can just about always find conflict. 

    Be careful of this. In homing in on conflict you could create a false balance. That’s when you make two sides seem more equal than they are. 

    The classic example is climate change. One of the reasons why it took so long for governments to recognize the danger of climate change is that for years journalists would balance the many, many scientists warning about carbon levels with the very few scientists who said the problem was overblown. 

    So how can you report multiple perspectives without creating a false sense of balance?

    A few suggestions

    Focus on facts, not opinions. And know the difference. 

    A fact can be verified through data and anecdotes of things that happened and that can also be verified. 

    When sources give you information, ask them: “How do you know that?” and “Do you have evidence to back that up?” 

    Even when they have evidence to back up what they say, question why they take the stand they take, or why they came to the conclusions that they did. It is almost as easy to find evidence to support a position as it is to find conflict in a story. I found myself almost believing that the earth is indeed flat when an advocate of that theory seemed to offer up a pile of convincing evidence. 

    To get the public to not worry about the dangers of tobacco, people from the tobacco industry offered up all kinds of evidence for years. People from the fossil fuels industry can offer up all kinds of evidence that human behavior (like driving petrol-powered cars) doesn’t cause climate change. 

    So it is important when you publish information someone has given you, to explain to your audience how that person benefits or is hurt by the issue. 

    Not all experts are equal.

    When seeking opinions or assessments, do so from people with actual expertise. That’s not the same as a level of education or a fancy title. Don’t be afraid to ask people: “How do you know this?” Someone without a university degree might have lived experience with a problem, while someone with a doctorate might never have experienced what you are reporting on. Politicians are fond of talking about the problems of poor people even though many of them came from privileged backgrounds. 

    Don’t be afraid to challenge people’s statements. Let them know when you find contradictory information. When you challenge people it is not a sign of disrespect. It is a sign that you have carefully listened to what they said, have thought about it and are now questioning it. Disrespect is to take something someone says without really listening or thinking about it. 

    Question data people cite or that you find. A census conducted in 2010 in Nabon, a rural area in Ecuador, found that almost 90% of the population was “poor”. That’s an astounding figure, and if used as data in the media, paints a very particular picture. However, a different study in 2013, conducted by the University of Quenca with the Nabon municipal government at the time, found a significantly different figure — that about 75% of the population reported to be highly satisfied with their lives when assessing “subjective wellbeing”. 

    The difference in figures is due to the indicators used to measure satisfaction. The “subjective wellbeing” survey by the University of Quenca measured people’s control over their lives, satisfaction with their occupation, financial situation, their environmental surroundings, family life, leisure time, spiritual life and food security. The census from 2010, however, looked at housing, access to health and education and monetary income.

    So the language used for measuring life satisfaction was important and that the context of the data — how and why it was collected — can change the meaning of the information. To make sure you don’t misreport data, try to avoid overly relying on just one source of numbers or statistics. Instead, check what other data is out there. 

    Report the reality.

    Your job as a journalist is to present the information in such a way that your audience can recognise what is actually happening and why it’s important. 

    Does what the experts say or what people say about their personal experience go against what you have seen out there yourself? People often exaggerate without even realizing that they are doing so. Our memories are often faulty; we might think we know things that we really don’t. 

    Taking all this into account, it is ultimately up to you, as a journalist, to decide how much balance to give to the multiple perspectives you have gathered. If the experiences and evidence and your observations and common sense all point to a reality, then you will mislead your audience if you balance that out equally with people who offer up what seems to be a different reality. 

    That doesn’t mean that you should silence them or keep them out of the story altogether. Understanding and exploring opposing viewpoints is important so that ultimately people can reach an understanding.

    Without that understanding, consensus isn’t possible. And it is difficult to make progress in a society without consensus.

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  • Judge Upholds Biden-Era Gainful Employment Rule

    Judge Upholds Biden-Era Gainful Employment Rule

    A federal judge rejected an effort to overturn the gainful-employment rule, which was put in place during the Biden administration.

    In an opinion issued Thursday, Judge Reed O’Connor from the Northern District of Texas sided with the Education Department on every point. One of the plaintiffs, a trade association representing cosmetology schools, had argued in its lawsuit that the regulations jeopardized the “very existence” of cosmetology schools and used flawed measures to determine whether graduates of career education programs are gainfully employed.

    Under the rules, for-profit and nondegree programs have to prove that their graduates can afford their loan payments and earn more than a high school graduate. Those that fail the tests in two consecutive years could lose access to federal financial aid. The regulations also included new reporting requirements for all colleges under the financial value transparency framework. 

    The lawsuit started under the Biden administration, and Trump officials opted to defend the regulations in court and urged the judge to keep the rules in place. 

    Similar gainful-employment rules survived a legal challenge in 2014 but were ultimately scrapped by the first Trump administration. However, in recent years, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have become more interested in finding ways to hold colleges accountable for their students’ career outcomes. Under legislation that Congress passed this summer, most college programs will have to pass a similar earnings test. How the Education Department carries out that test will be subject to a rule-making process set to kick off later this year.

    Jason Altmire, president and chief executive officer of Career Education Colleges and Universities, which represents the for-profit sector and opposed the Biden rule, said in a statement that he looks forward to revisiting the issue during the rule-making process.

    “We are confident the Biden Gainful Employment Rule will be revised to incorporate a fairer accountability measure that will apply equally to all schools, ensuring all students can benefit,” he said. “We look forward to a full consideration of these issues during the months ahead.”

    Dan Zibel, vice president of the legal advocacy group Student Defense, applauded the court ruling in a statement. 

    “Higher education is supposed to offer students a path to a better life, not a debt-filled dead end,” he said. “The 2023 Gainful Employment Rule reflects a common-sense policy to ensure that students are not wasting time and money on career programs that provide little value.”

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  • Mike Gavin Resigns to Lead DEI Defense Coalition

    Mike Gavin Resigns to Lead DEI Defense Coalition

    Mike Gavin, the founder of Education for All, a grassroots group of community college administrators fighting legislative attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion, will step down as president of Delta College in January. He has been in the post since 2021. 

    Gavin informed the Delta College Board of Trustees last week that he would resign to lead a national coalition focused on defending equity in higher ed. 

    “My whole career has been focused on equity and how higher ed is situated in the democratic experiment, so when I was asked to do the next thing, I felt compelled to do it,” Gavin told Inside Higher Ed. 

    “I was not looking for a job. Delta has been amazing. The faculty and staff are some of the most insightful and student-centered I’ve ever seen,” he said. 

    More information about the coalition, including its priorities and funding model, will be released soon, he added. 

    Since the early days of the second Trump administration, Gavin has been a leading voice in defending DEI work in higher ed, especially at community colleges. Participation in Education for All surged at the beginning of the year as college leaders sought advice on protecting programs and navigating compliance with Trump administration mandates. 

    “My scholarship rests on the great thinkers of our past, from Benjamin Franklin to James Baldwin. It is also grounded in the belief that our country depends on a higher education sector that must be free from partisan interference, in order to democratize higher education for all,” Gavin wrote in a letter to the Delta College community.  

    Delta College trustees said they will begin the process of appointing Gavin’s successor in the coming weeks. 

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  • Texas Tech Clarified Anti-Trans Policies in FAQ—Then Removed It

    Texas Tech Clarified Anti-Trans Policies in FAQ—Then Removed It

    Faculty may include a preferred name policy on their syllabi, but they are advised against mentioning pronouns, the FAQ said.

    Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | menonsstocks/E+/Getty Images | snorkulencija/iStock/Getty Images

    After a confusing week, Texas Tech University officials offered the first written clarification on new university policies that prohibit faculty members from speaking or teaching about transgender identity. On Sunday, the provost’s office posted a lengthy frequently asked questions page that, among other things, addressed the definition of “noncompliant language,” explained how the new policies impact research and answered whether faculty can write on their syllabi that they are an ally to transgender people.

    But after three days, the FAQ was taken down. Faculty have not been told why the information was removed, and health-care instructors are concerned students will not be trained in care for transgender patients, as required by certification exams.

    A university spokesperson did not respond to Inside Higher Ed’s questions on the matter. Some faculty suspect that Brandon Creighton, who was officially named the Texas Tech system’s next chancellor on Tuesday, may have orchestrated the removal of the FAQ. Creighton was the lead author of the Texas Senate’s sweeping ban on diversity, equity and inclusion in 2023, and of the recent bill giving control of faculty senates to university presidents and boards. He will assume the chancellor role on Nov. 19.

    While it was the first and most comprehensive written guidance Texas Tech has posted on its anti-trans policies, the FAQ left a lot of questions unanswered. The word “transgender” wasn’t included in any of the written answers. In one answer, officials wrote that noncompliant language “refers specifically to outdated or inaccurate syllabus content (i.e., COVID-era statements or statements referring to offices or units that no longer exist at Texas Tech.),” but said nothing about gender identity.

    In response to a question about academic freedom, officials wrote, “Faculty may include course content that is relevant to a student’s program of study and post-graduation opportunities, including workforce and additional education. Faculty are encouraged to be thoughtful about including content that is described in the Chancellor’s memo.”

    The new directives do not impact research, the FAQ clarified. Officials advised against including a “personal statement of student support” or a statement professing LGBTQ allyship, writing that “such a statement could attract unwanted attention.” They also wrote that faculty could include a preferred name policy on their syllabi, but that “until further clarification is available, it is advisable to omit personal pronoun language.” When relevant, instructors are permitted to facilitate classroom discussions in which students examine the state’s position on gender alongside other views, but the instructor may not advocate for any particular view.

    In a later question about government censorship and faculty retention, officials wrote, “We recognize that faculty recruitment and retention may be affected. At present, the issued guidance applies only to instructional activities, not a faculty member’s independent research.”

    The Texas conference of the American Association of University Professors has pushed back on the anti-trans policies at Texas Tech and other public universities in the state.

    “Colleges and universities have an obligation to develop campus policies that protect the constitutional rights of their faculty to teach and research the subjects in their areas of expertise without intimidation or censorship,” said Brian Evans, president of the Texas conference of the AAUP. “By ensuring that teachers can speak freely, campus administrators should enable students to explore and learn the widest set of topics for civil engagement and successful careers. Campus policies related to academic freedom and free speech should be devised with the full participation of faculty in the spirit of a shared commitment to excellence.”

    The FAQ—as short-lived as it was—only applied to Texas Tech’s flagship campus. The four other campuses in the public system, including Angelo State University, where faculty have received a profusion of conflicting verbal information, were not included.

    A faculty member at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution confirmed to Inside Higher Ed that faculty at their campus have been told not to use certain terms in their course content, including “transgender”; “gender-affirming care”; “diversity, equity and inclusion”; and “affirmative action.” Health Sciences Center faculty have not received any written guidance, and the deans don’t have clarifying information, either, the faculty member said. It is an especially troubling policy to enforce for health-care students, because care for transgender patients is included in some certification exams students must pass to be licensed, they said.

    “There are certainly many things that our government has [outlawed] … but I can’t think of another thing that we’ve been told we can’t talk about,” the faculty member said. “Sex trafficking is illegal, but we can talk about how to care for people who have been victims of sex trafficking. Drunk driving—there’s about a million examples.”

    It is unclear how much information students have about these new policies, according to the faculty member. Some students are bringing up transgender care in classroom discussions, and instructors are unsure how to respond.

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  • Duration-of-Status Rule Prompts Opposition From Commenters

    Duration-of-Status Rule Prompts Opposition From Commenters

    A slew of public commenters derided the Department of Homeland Security’s proposal that would restrict how long international students can stay in the country.

    The measure would alter the long-standing policy known as duration of status, which allows international students to stay in the U.S. until their course of study is complete. Among other concerns, commenters argued that the rule would unnecessarily restrict international students, who are already closely monitored by the government and their institutions of study. Many commenters also drew attention to the potential consequences for the health-care system and employers.

    The proposed rule would instead cap the amount of time students could stay in the U.S. to just four years, though they would be able to request an extension from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. It would also prevent international students from changing their majors or transferring between U.S. institutions.

    According to DHS, the proposal aims to lessen the number of students who overstay their F and J visas. However, NAFSA, the international education association, argued that research has shown that DHS overestimates overstay rates. The organization, along with other commenters, also noted that the Student Exchange and Visitor Information System—the online system that monitors international students—already alerts Immigration and Customs Enforcement if a student overstays their visa.

    The comment period closed on Sept. 29. DHS will now have to review and respond to more than 15,700 comments before deciding whether to move forward with the elimination of duration of status.

    More Than 4 Years

    Numerous commenters noted that a significant number of students take more than four years to complete their undergraduate degree—and it’s incredibly rare to complete a Ph.D. in that length of time. That means a significant number of students will be at risk of being unable to complete their programs if they are unable to secure extensions.

    Commenters noted a range of reasons they, their peers or their students have struggled to finish a degree in under four years, including medical and family emergencies, the death or departure of a faculty mentor, completing cooperative internships, and more.

    Others pointed out that some programs are even intended to take longer than four years. Jessica Goswick, an architect and a lecturer, wrote that a B.Arch., a professional bachelor’s degree in architecture, is intended to be completed in five years. The University of Illinois system—one of several dozen institutions that opposed the rule in written comments—said that its main Urbana-Champaign campus has over 30 undergraduate programs requiring more than 120 credit hours.

    “Limiting initial entry to four years would require students in these programs to take more than 15 credits every semester for four years, which would reduce performance and graduation rates,” the system’s comment reads. “Undergraduate students should be encouraged to take course loads appropriate for success rather than rush toward an arbitrary completion date determined by their date of entry to the United States.”

    Several researchers and current Ph.D. students also stressed that graduate students frequently need more time to complete their research.

    “Reducing this time for foreign student scientists would make it impossible for them to earn a Ph.D. in many fields, including my own field of neuroscience. Science takes years to build, develop, execute, and compile in order [to] share the information with the world and enrich the scientific community,” wrote Grace Swaim, a postdoctoral researcher at Yale University.

    Although students would have the option to get their visas extended beyond the four-year cap, experts warned that doing so is costly, time-consuming and uncertain, and it would add to USCIS’s already-lengthy processing time—about 6.5 months—for such extensions, according to NAFSA. The University of Illinois system also emphasized that the rule would force the system to hire 13 new full-time and one part-time employee and spend over $2 million in the first year alone to apply for these extensions.

    These added barriers could ultimately lead fewer students to want to study in the United States, commenters warned, which many faculty said would be a loss for their labs, their larger institutions and the country as a whole.

    “These students not only make crucial contributions to the fundamental research in our department, but often end up filling important roles in industry, academia and national labs in the U.S. Others contribute to the international efforts unraveling the nature of matter and developing novel technologies even after returning to their home country,” wrote Sebastian Kuhn, chair of the physics department at Old Dominion University. “International graduate students are an indispensable contribution to the success of the U.S. research enterprise and the international standing of our country.”

    Beyond the Campus

    Other commenters shared that the rule could have an impact outside of the classroom and the lab. Physicians and hospital administrators said the roughly 17,000 J-1 visa holders currently working in hospitals as part of their medical training would be affected and detailed in comments how the change could ultimately disrupt Americans’ access to health care.

    “It is important to recognize that the 17,000 J-1 physicians training in the U.S. do not displace domestic medical graduates; rather, they fill residency slots that would otherwise remain unfilled each year,” wrote the American Hospital Association in a comment. “These physicians disproportionately train in high-need specialties that continue to be in substantial shortage, such as internal medicine, pediatrics and family medicine. They also frequently work in rural and underserved communities, and many who train in those settings continue to work in them when their training is complete. J-1 physicians not only help sustain the physician workforce pipeline but also help expand patient access to essential care.”

    Numerous commenters who identified themselves as leaders in industries from financial services to pharmaceuticals also explained how their companies and industries at large rely on the contributions of international students.

    “The maximum stay restrictions are especially problematic for Ph.D. students and those conducting long-term clinical trials, which often span five to seven years,” wrote an anonymous commenter who identified themself as a senior executive in a global pharmaceutical company. “Reducing this flexibility would disrupt important research in drug efficacy and public health. Students engaged in such long-term research projects would be forced to abandon their work prematurely, leading to a waste of time, resources, and intellectual capital that the U.S. cannot afford to lose.”

    A seemingly small number of comments were in favor of the change, with many of the supportive comments claiming international students are taking jobs and spots at colleges away from Americans.

    One higher education association—the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities—did not outright oppose the measure, but rather encouraged DHS to limit it just to colleges with admission rates under 30 percent. The council’s president, David A. Hoag, argued that those are the institutions at which the administration is concerned about “foreign students potentially displacing American students.”

    “This approach directly addresses the administration’s stated concern by focusing on the subset of institutions where foreign student enrollment is most likely to impact domestic applicants,” he wrote. “By limiting the rule’s scope in this way, DHS can more effectively target its regulatory efforts while minimizing unnecessary restrictions on less selective schools where this displacement issue is less pronounced.”

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  • NIH Fires 4 Directors After Putting Them on Leave

    NIH Fires 4 Directors After Putting Them on Leave

    The directors felt they were fired as part of the administration’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion and for political reasons.

    Wesley Lapointe/The Washington Post via Getty Images

    Four directors at the National Institutes of Health who were placed on administrative leave earlier this year have now been fired, Science reported.

    The ousted leaders led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, and the National Institute of Nursing Research. Tara Schwetz, the deputy director for program coordination, planning and strategic initiatives, was also fired. The directors were put on leave in the spring around the same time that the administration laid off thousands at the Department of Health and Human Services.

    Science reported that the directors felt they were targeted as part of the administration’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion and for political reasons. Jeanne Marrazzo, the former NIAID director, took over for Anthony Fauci, a frequent target for Republicans who took issue with his approach to the COVID-19 pandemic. Marrazzo filed a whistleblower complaint in early September that in part accused NIH leadership of downplaying the value of vaccines, The New York Times reported.

    “It’s not surprising, but it’s still incredibly disappointing,” Marrazzo told Science. “I would have been quite happy to serve under the new administration as long as we were allowed to do our jobs.”

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