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Higher Education Inquirer : The US Government Shutdown: “Let Them Eat Cheese”
The stock market is up. Politicians beam on cable news about “economic resilience.” But on the ground, the picture looks very different. Jobs are scarce or unstable, rents keep rising, and food insecurity is back to 1980s levels. The government shutdown has hit federal workers, SNAP recipients, and service programs for the poor and disabled. And what does Washington offer the hungry? Cheese—literally and metaphorically.

Government cheese once symbolized a broken welfare system—a processed product handed out to the desperate while politicians preached self-reliance. Today’s version is digital and disembodied: food banks filled with castoffs, online portals for benefits that don’t come, “relief” programs that require a master’s degree to navigate. People are told to be grateful while they wait in line for what little is left.

Meanwhile, the headlines celebrate record-breaking stock prices and defense contracts. Billions flow abroad to Argentina, Ukraine, and Israel—especially Israel, where U.S. aid underwrites weapons used in what many describe as genocide in Palestine. Corporate media downplay it, politicians justify it, and dissenters are told they’re unpatriotic.

In the U.S., the old cry of “personal responsibility” masks the reality of neoliberal economics—a system that privatizes profit and socializes pain. When the government shuts down, it’s the poor who feel it first. The “educated underclass”—graduates burdened by debt, adjuncts working without benefits, laid-off professionals—are just a few missed paychecks away from standing in the same line for government cheese.

Yet many Americans don’t see who the real enemy is. They turn on one another—Democrats versus Republicans, urban versus rural, native-born versus immigrant—while the architects of austerity watch from gated communities. The spectacle distracts from the structural theft: trillions transferred upward, democracy traded for debt, justice sold to the highest bidder.

“Let them eat cheese” is no longer a historical joke. It’s the bipartisan message of a political class that rewards Wall Street while abandoning Main Street. And as long as the public stays divided, hungry, and distracted, the pantry of power remains locked.

Sources
- U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). “Household Food Insecurity in the United States in 2024.”
- Gary Roth. The Educated Underclass.
- Congressional Budget Office (CBO). “Economic Effects of a Government Shutdown.”
- Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. “Wealth Inequality and Stock Market Concentration.”
- The Intercept. “How U.S. Weapons and Aid Fuel the Assault on Gaza.”
- Associated Press. “Food Banks Report Record Demand Amid Inflation.”
- Jacobin Magazine. “Neoliberalism and the Return of American Austerity.”
- Reuters. “U.S. Sends Billions in Loans and Aid to Argentina.”
- Economic Policy Institute (EPI). “Wage Stagnation and the Cost of Living Crisis.”
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October 31, 2025
TCU Moves Race, Gender Studies Departments to English

On June 1, Texas Christian University will close its stand-alone gender studies and race and ethnic studies departments and fold the majors and courses into the English Department, university leaders announced earlier this month.

The research university in Fort Worth is one of the first private institutions in the state to announce changes to its gender, sexuality and race-related academic programs after firings at Texas A&M University prompted the state’s public institutions to flag, censor and cut classes related to gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity.

In a meeting with English Department faculty on Oct. 22, TCU provost Floyd Wormley cited financial reasons for the change, asserting that political pressure “had no influence” on the decision to merge the Women and Gender Studies and Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies Departments into the English Department. But some faculty aren’t convinced. They say the move follows a decline in institutional support for the disciplines as the university faces immense pressure to eliminate any and all programming related to gender, race and ethnicity.

“The explanation from the administration is financial, and that doesn’t necessarily track with earlier correspondence with the department,” said Brandon Manning, an associate professor of gender and sexuality and race and ethnic Studies. The university is expanding its physical footprint and its student body, and “there are new programs and departments popping up daily,” he added. “TCU has been receiving considerable criticism online, and this seems to be a way to placate that criticism.”

A TCU spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed that conversations about merging the departments started more than two years ago. The two departments already share a leadership structure. The English Department wasn’t mentioned as a partner until the Oct. 17 announcement, said Alexandra Edwards, an English instructor at TCU.

The merger will affect seven faculty members, five of whom will likely follow the programs into the English Department. Other faculty and support staff will be deployed to other departments, Wormley and Sonja Watson, dean for the AddRan College of Liberal Arts, told faculty at the Oct. 22 meeting. The merger is part of a universitywide restructuring project and is primarily due to low enrollment in the two departments, they said. The Spanish and Modern Languages Departments will also be combined, and so will the Geology and Environmental Sciences Departments.

“Decisions are not based on academic content but on data,” a TCU spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed. “Students currently majoring in these programs have been notified that there will be no impact to their academic progress, meaning they will be able to complete their degrees as planned. TCU is growing and will need more faculty and staff—not less—to ensure that we meet the academic needs of students and demand for a TCU education.”

This fall, Critical Race and Ethnic Studies enrolled nine majors and minors, and Women and Gender Studies enrolled just two. The two programs have never been large; since becoming stand-alone departments in 2018, their highest combined enrollment was 31 majors and minors, in fall 2020. But using low enrollments to justify the merger is unfair, Edwards argued. The programs haven’t had a chance to flourish because of constant structural changes, she said.

“They have been through a ton of turmoil and leadership turnover and reassignment to various different colleges and units across the university, so for a long time they’ve been unable to become stable,” Edwards said. “I don’t see how gender studies or ethnic studies could become a priority in an English department that’s already … juggling a lot of competing interests and varied disciplines.”

Department chairs weren’t given any warning about the merger with the English department, and faculty were not consulted before the decision was made, according to notes from the Oct. 22 meeting shared with Inside Higher Ed. When faculty asked why, Wormley said it was within “the purview of the institution to make those decisions.”

A One-Man Campaign?

While TCU isn’t subject to the same state laws that eliminated diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at Texas’s public institutions, the university is still getting plenty of external pressure to ax its gender and race studies offerings. Faculty say the campaign to abolish related classes, programs and events at the university is led by Bo French, a TCU alum and the son of a sitting TCU board member. French is also chairman of the Tarrant County Republican Party and a conservative politician who was denounced by members of his own party for using slurs for gay people and people with disabilities.

French has berated the university online for what he described as “LGBTQ” and “radical Marxist” indoctrination. He celebrated on Oct. 10 when the university removed the “LGBTQ+” link from the “community initiatives” dropdown on its website. Three days earlier, he posted a poll on X asking followers if the university should “dismantle its entire racist DEI infrastructure and also stop offering courses in degenerate LGBTQ ideology.”

French interpreted the merger news as a partial victory. “This is simply hiding what they do in another department. Nothing changes,” he wrote on X on Oct. 22. “However, it does show that the public pressure is working. They are bending, but we have to make them break completely and eliminate these courses altogether.”

Since then, he has continued to wage a social media campaign against anything related to gender, sexuality or diversity at TCU. On Oct. 22 he also posted on X a photo of a lawn sign advertising campus Pride Month events, alongside the comment “I know a few things are happening behind the scenes at ⁦@TCU⁩ and I am now more hopeful than ever, but they haven’t happened yet and so stuff like this is still polluting the campus.”

Publicly, university officials have said little in response to criticism by French and others, Edwards said. She noted that she was harassed and doxed by conservatives in August 2024 over posts she made before she worked at TCU, and she was advised by administrators to “lay low” until the firestorm subsided. A former TCU Women and Gender Studies professor who received a threat of violence in response to a 2023 course titled The Queer Art of Drag was asked by police to leave campus for his own safety, Edwards said. More recently, a political science professor was doxed for online comments she made in the wake of conservative firebrand Charlie Kirk’s death.

Asked how the university has responded to political pressure and harassment of faculty, a spokesperson said, “The university has a thorough process to notify faculty and staff members and provide them with appropriate guidance and support to mitigate potential risks.”

In conversations with faculty, TCU leaders have acknowledged the pressures of the political landscape on the university, particularly on the gender and race studies departments, Edwards said. At the end of the Oct. 22 meeting, Watson told faculty she had been concerned about the future of the departments since Trump was inaugurated in January. During a March 28 meeting between faculty and Watson about combining the gender and race studies departments, Watson expressed concern about recent executive orders from President Trump.

“I think that we all know that the executive orders disproportionately affect [Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies], right? … As I said in the beginning, [I am] still very much committed to CRES and very much committed to growing the number of majors, and so I think the biggest challenge … is, how do we increase?” Watson said during the meeting, according to a recording obtained by Inside Higher Ed. “All liberal arts majors’ programs are having this issue for various reasons, but we see these issues manifest in a different way in both CRES and [Women and Gender Studies].”

In an all-hands meeting on April 4, TCU president Daniel Pullin and general counsel Larry Leroy Tyner explained the difficult bind the current national and state political landscapes have put the university in.

“If there’s a cliff that if you step off, there’s serious consequences, and [if] you don’t know where the edge of the cliff is, you stay way away from the edge,” Tyner said. “The combination of uncertainty and significant consequences creates the chilling effect.”

About a minute later, Pullin added that he and his cabinet are “trying to figure out how to stay as far away from that unknown cliff as possible so we can stay on mission and live our values and execute our plan.”

(This story has been updated to more accurately reflect the chronology of events precipitating the merger.)

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October 31, 2025
Academic Libraries Embrace AI

Libraries worldwide are exploring or ramping up their use of artificial intelligence, according to a new report by Clarivate, a global information services company.

The report, released Thursday, based its findings on a survey of over 2,000 librarians across 109 countries and regions. Most respondents, 77 percent, worked at academic libraries. The survey found that 67 percent of libraries were exploring or implementing AI this year, up from 63 percent last year; 35 percent were still in the evaluation stage.

Academic libraries incorporated AI into their work at a higher rate than libraries over all, the report found. Only 28 percent of academic libraries had no plans to use AI or weren’t actively pursuing it, compared to 54 percent of public libraries. Academic and public libraries also had different priorities, with student engagement top of mind for academic librarians and community engagement the central mission for public librarians. Libraries’ top objectives for AI use were to support student learning and help people discover new content.

Libraries tended to be further along in implementing AI if they incorporated AI literacy into librarians’ onboarding and training, gave librarians dedicated time and resources to learn AI tools, and had managers who encouraged AI implementation. Librarians in the process of implementing AI reported feeling optimistic about its benefits, compared to other librarians.

However, AI adoption, and optimism, varied by region. For example, U.S. libraries lagged in AI implementation, and only 7 percent of librarians surveyed said they felt optimistic about it; in Asia and the rest of the world, that share fell between 27 and 31 percent. The report also found differences in attitudes toward AI among senior and junior librarians. Senior librarians, who served as associate deans, deans and library directors, expressed more confidence in their knowledge of AI and prioritized using it to streamline administrative processes, compared to junior librarians.

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October 31, 2025
Higher Ed Tech Leaders Pursue Consolidation and Savings
NASHVILLE, Tenn.—Talk of what’s possible with AI permeated conversations this week among the 7,000 attendees at Educause, the sector’s leading education-technology conference. But amid the product demos, corporate swag and new feature launches, higher ed’s technology and data leaders expressed caution about investing in new tech.

They said that budget constraints, economic uncertainty and understaffed technology teams were forcing them to seek a clear return on investment in new tools rather than quick-fix purchases. And as tech leaders look to the coming year, they say the human side of data, cybersecurity and AI will be the focus of their work.

Educause researchers at the event announced the 2026 Educause Top 10, a list of key focus areas they compiled based on interviews with leaders, expert panel recommendations and a survey of technology leaders at 450 institutions. The results underline how uncertainty around federal funding, economic instability and political upheaval is making it hard for leaders to plan.
The 2026 Educause Top 10

Collaborative Cybersecurity

The Human Edge of AI

Data Analytics for Operational and Financial Insights

Building a Data-Centric Culture Across the Institution

Knowledge Management for Safer AI

Measure Approaches to New Technologies

Technology Literacy for the Future Workforce

From Reactive to Proactive

AI-Enabled Efficiencies and Growth

Decision-Maker Data Skills and Literacy
For example, No. 6 on the list is “Measured Approaches to New Technologies.” Leaders say they intend to “make better technology investment decisions (or choosing not to invest) through clear cost, ROI and legacy systems assessments.”

Presenting the top 10 in a cavernous ballroom in the Music City conference center, Mark McCormack, senior director of research and insights at Educause, said leaders feel pressure to make smart investments and stay on top of rapid advancements in technology. “The technology marketplace is evolving so quickly and institutions feel a pressure to keep up, but that pressure to keep up can lead to less optimal approaches to technology purchasing and implementation,” he said.

“From some of our other Educuase research we know that quick fixes and reactive purchases often lead to technical debt and poor interoperability and additional strains on our technology teams,” he added. “That’s just not sustainable, especially with our tight budgets and our capacity, so we need to make decisions based on a clear understanding of cost and value.”

No. 3 on the list, “Data Analytics for Operational and Financial Insights,” indicated technology leaders will respond to intensifying financial pressures through better data analysis. “Cuts to federal funding, enrollment trends, public skepticism about the value of a degree—so many of us are feeling that weight right now, and in this kind of environment our institutions are turning to data as a guide to help them navigate some complicated decisions,” McCormack said.

Data can also help colleges identify priority areas for investment, such as enrollment targets, compliance requirements or areas of programmatic growth, he noted. “But our data can also guide conversations about where to scale back, and we need to be able to distinguish between high-impact priorities and areas that may no longer align with the institution’s direction.”

Commenting on the top 10, Brandon Rich, director of AI enablement at the University of Notre Dame, said his institution is using AI to navigate tight budgets. “With the budget challenges we face, we see AI as a possible way to move forward and create efficiencies,” he said during a mainstage panel.

Speaking with Inside Higher Ed, Nicole Engelbert, vice president of product strategy for student systems at Oracle, said colleges are reviewing their tech ecosystems more critically. “Institutions are looking to streamline, consolidate, shop their closet, because any dollar spent on extraneous technology is a dollar that isn’t going to be spent for research, student aid, recruitment, classes, faculty—all the things that make an institution healthy and vibrant,” she said.

She expects the current political and economic climate will dissuade institutions from taking on expensive, transformational projects. “Making big changes on your payroll, on your general ledger, on your student enrollment takes huge amounts of psychic energy from a large population, and that population right now is very weary. They’re exhausted by the last year,” she said.

One silver lining of higher ed’s financial uncertainty could be a shift toward more tactical forward planning, Engelbert said. “I hope there’s this new period where we look at transformation projects or technology projects more strategically, more critically,” she said.

Collective Will, Individual Capabilities

Other priorities on the Educause top 10 look similar to those from previous years: Improved cybersecurity, better data and data governance, and harnessing the power of AI are issues that have appeared on the list for the past five years.

But Educause researchers say this year’s study shows leaders’ focus has shifted from infrastructure and platforms to the humans working with these systems. They break the list into two themes: collective will—connecting resources and knowledge across departments to “shape a shared institutionwide perspective”—and individual capabilities, or training and empowering people to realize the “net benefits” of the technologies and data on campus.

“The thing that we saw that was very different is that … even as technology is skyrocketing, changing everything we do, we as higher education need to remember our humanity and lead with that because that’s what makes us resilient,” said Crista Copp, vice president of research at Educause.

No. 1 on the list is “Collaborative Cybersecurity,” reflecting institutions’ urgency to safeguard their expanding digital borders.

“The ecosystem is becoming a lot more distributed across devices and locations. That person who’s using their device logging in to that system from, you know, a coffee shop or wherever, they’re becoming more and more important to be educated and equipped to do that safely,” McCormack told Inside Higher Ed.

“The other thing that did come up is an acknowledgment that as our tools are becoming more sophisticated … those threat actors are becoming more sophisticated as well.”

Institutional data and how it is managed will also be a priority for technology leaders in 2026, according to the list. “Data Analytics for Operational and Financial Insights” is No. 3, “Building a Data-Centric Culture Across the Institution” is No. 4, and “Decision-Maker Data Skills and Literacy” comes in at No. 10.

Copp said these issues suggest institutions will be tackling data from different angles. “It’s this triad of ‘Oh my gosh, we have all this information. And we don’t have it organized properly. We don’t know how to interpret it properly. And then we don’t know what to do with it,” she said. “I found it really interesting that … we saw three sides of the same thing.”

AI-related issues also appear three times on the list: “The Human Edge of AI” at No. 2, “Knowledge Management for Safer AI” at No. 5 and “AI-Enabled Efficiencies and Growth” at No. 9. The growing focus on improving AI across institutions also represents a shift in what’s needed in the higher education workforce.

“I think everyone, regardless if you’re in higher education or not, [is] facing workforce changes. And part of that is, who do we want to be? And we need to define [that],” she said. “No. 2 [on the list] … is the human edge of AI and it’s, ‘Although we expect you to use AI, we want you to come as a person first, because that’s what education is all about.’”
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October 31, 2025
Valley Forge Military College Wants to Sign Compact

While seven of the nine universities originally invited to join the Trump administration’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” have formally rejected the agreement, Valley Forge Military College wants to sign on to the proposal, as first reported by Fox News.

President Donald Trump extended the invitation to all colleges after initial rejections from institutions that objected to provisions in the compact that would limit academic freedom.

The compact would require universities to suppress criticism of conservatives on campus, cap international enrollment at 15 percent, freeze tuition, overhaul admissions and hiring practices, and make various other changes in return for preferential treatment on federal research funding.

Now Valley Forge, a private two-year college in Pennsylvania, wants in on the compact.

“Participation in the Compact would provide valuable opportunities for collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement. We are particularly eager to contribute to discussions on leadership education, student resilience, and pathways from two-year programs to four-year institutions,” officials wrote to the Education Department. “These are areas in which Valley Forge has developed effective practices and measurable outcomes that could benefit peer institutions.”

Universities in the initial invitation were all research-focused, and the appeal from U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon emphasized the benefits of signing on, which would include “allowance for increased overhead payments where feasible, substantial and meaningful federal grants, and other federal partnerships.”

It is unclear how Valley Forge, which does not have a research focus, would benefit. The college is also much smaller than the first invitees, enrolling 86 students in fall 2023, according to federal data.

Valley Forge is now the third institution to publicly express interest in signing the compact since the invitation was expanded, following Grand Canyon University and New College of Florida.

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October 31, 2025
Trump’s Deportation Campaign Raises FAFSA Privacy Concerns

NCAN said mixed-status families must make their own decision regarding whether they feel comfortable filling out the FAFSA.

College access organizations are raising concerns about students from mixed-status families—families with members who hold different immigration statuses—who are filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid amid the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign.

“Although the Higher Education Act prohibits the use of data for any purpose other than determining and awarding federal financial assistance, [the National College Attainment Network] cannot assure mixed-status students and families that data submitted to US Department of Education (ED), as part of the FAFSA process, will continue to be protected,” NCAN, which represents college access organizations across the nation, wrote in new guidance.

The organization added that the Office of Federal Student Aid has said the Education Department won’t share information that breaks the law.

But “we understand many families’ confidence in this statement may not be as certain under the current administration,” the organization continued. The post advised families to consider whether to submit a FAFSA on a “case-by-case basis.”

The organization had previously published similar guidance before President Donald Trump even took office but updated it after the 2026–27 FAFSA opened late last month. Zenia Henderson, chief program officer for NCAN, said the organization has received a slew of questions about the security of the personal information entered into the FAFSA, and many of its member organizations are reporting that some of the families they work with are forgoing the FAFSA out of fear.

Previously, the Trump administration has sought to use personal data from other agencies to assist in its deportation efforts, including requesting state voter rolls, public housing data, tax information and records of who applied for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Federal courts have blocked some of these requests.

The Trump administration has also attacked programs and initiatives that help undocumented students themselves access higher education. The administration has demanded states stop offering in-state tuition to undocumented students and has attempted to eliminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects from deportation certain undocumented individuals who were brought to the country as children and has opened the door to higher education for this group.

Other experts and advocacy groups agreed that there is cause for concern among mixed-status families.

“Concerns are very much warranted in light of how cross-agency collaboration has been weaponized against immigrant families in recent months—including but not limited to the ostensible collusion between the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security to vacate active asylum cases when parents and children are lawfully appearing in immigration court, so that they can be apprehended on the premises by immigration enforcement and placed in detention,” wrote Faisal Al-Juburi, chief external affairs officer for RAICES, a nonprofit immigrant law center in Texas, in an email to Inside Higher Ed. “There is simply no indication that the Trump administration will adhere to legal precedent.”

Will Davies, director of policy and research for Breakthrough Central Texas, a college access organization, noted in an email to Inside Higher Ed that, even though the Trump administration’s immigration attacks have been especially worrying for mixed-status families, such families have long had to make difficult decisions about when to submit personal information to the government.

He also noted that FAFSA data is protected by the Privacy Act of 1974 and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and said that, to his knowledge, no undocumented parent has ever been targeted using FAFSA data.

Cutting Off Access

For many families, the choice is not as clear-cut as simply not filling out the FAFSA. Most institutions and states calculate their financial aid offerings using the FAFSA’s formula and require students to fill out the FAFSA to take advantage of that aid. If mixed-status families do not complete the FAFSA, they are essentially cutting themselves off from almost all sources of assistance in paying for college.

“It has the potential to close a lot of doors in terms of accessing aid that’s needed, from last-dollar scholarships to merit-based scholarships,” Henderson said. “There are so many folks that ask for FAFSA information and that [the] application be competed in order to check eligibility, because they may not have their own systems or processes in place. FAFSA really is the default way to prove need.”

Three states—California, New York and Washington—have developed their own financial need calculation tools for individuals who want to be considered only for state and local aid. All three address privacy concerns, stating specifically that the data will not be provided to the federal government without a court order.

“The opportunity to pursue an education is highly valued, and financial aid is the only way many students can afford college or training,” the Washington Student Achievement Council wrote in a message, released days after Trump entered office, about aid applicant privacy. WSAC administers Washington’s state aid calculator.

“We sympathize deeply with anyone concerned about their privacy in applying for financial aid, and we support students and families in making decisions that best fit their educational goals and risk considerations. While WSAC cannot provide guidance on what a family should do in a specific situation, we do encourage students, families, educators, and advocates to review the following resources that may provide helpful information.”

Alison De Lucca, executive director of the Southern California College Attainment Network, told Inside Higher Ed in an email that her organization is working with several families who are uncertain if they will fill out the FAFSA this year; an estimated one in every five individuals under the age of 18 in California comes from a mixed-status family.

One SoCal CAN student opted to fill out just California’s state aid form, the California Dream Act Application, this year in order to protect her mother—even though she thought she might have benefited from federal aid.

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October 31, 2025
21 States, D.C. Ask Court to Reverse TRIO Grant Rejections

Twenty-one state attorneys general and the AG of Washington, D.C., filed briefs in support of lawsuits challenging the cancellation of TRIO grants for programs such as Upward Bound at Montgomery County Community College.

Linda Johnson/Montgomery County Community College

Democratic attorneys general from 21 states and Washington, D.C., filed briefs this week asking a court to reverse the Trump administration’s rejection of grants supporting TRIO programs, which help disadvantaged students attend and graduate from colleges and universities.

The Council for Opportunity in Education, which advocates for TRIO programs such as Upward Bound, said about 100 grants were rejected or canceled last month after the Education Department delayed funding for thousands of grants that were slated to begin Sept. 1. Another 23 programs lost funding earlier in the year.

Those terminations deprived more than 43,600 students of services such as tutoring and financial aid help. (Trump’s fiscal year 2026 budget request would end TRIO altogether, and all but a handful of staff in the TRIO grants office were fired early in the ongoing government shutdown.)

On Sept. 30, the Council filed two lawsuits against the department and Education Secretary Linda McMahon in the U.S. District Court for D.C., alleging that the department canceled grants for complying with the General Education Provisions Act Equity Directive—a requirement at the time of the applications. One suit argues the department faulted a University of New Hampshire application for allegedly saying its program would be “identifying and recruiting students of color and non-Caucasians.”

The Council is requesting preliminary injunctions vacating the department’s denials and ordering reconsideration of the grants. The attorneys general filed amicus briefs supporting this call.

“TRIO programs serving thousands of high-school and college students have closed, many of which have operated successfully for years with track records of success,” the briefs say. “Students who relied on these programs’ guidance and academic assistance are now being turned away. The result will be fewer students going to college and fewer students graduating college, to the detriment of impacted Amici States, their residents, and their economies.”

The AGs of Nevada and Massachusetts were the briefs’ lead authors; they were joined by their counterparts in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, D.C., Hawai‘i, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

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October 31, 2025
ED Finalizes PSLF Rule Limiting Who Gets Forgiveness

Employees at any company the Trump administration deems as having “a substantial illegal purpose” will no longer qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness under a new set of regulations finalized Thursday by the Department of Education.

The final rule is very similar to the first draft released in August—both of which have been heavily criticized. The policy change, in the works for months, stemmed from an executive order issued in March. Lawsuits challenging the new rule, which takes effect July 1 of next year, are expected as soon as next week.

“My first reaction when reading the rule was that we will see them in court,” said Brian Galle, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who submitted a comment along with at least a dozen other scholars of tax law.

Collectively, the commenters called on department officials to conduct an extensive review and study over the rule, none of which were completed. So now, Galle said, the department will face the consequences.

“I know that firsthand,” he explained. “A rule that I wrote for the Securities and Exchange Commission was sent back by the Fifth Circuit because there was one statistical study that the agency didn’t do.”

Under the new rule, illegal activities will include: aiding and abetting violations of immigration or civil rights law, supporting terrorism, providing gender-affirming care, or “trafficking” children from one state to another for purposes of emancipation. The education secretary will decide whether an employer violates the rule based on a “preponderance of the evidence.”

Many Democrats, industry leaders and student borrower advocates who have spoken out against the rule say it is vague and could allow Trump and future presidents to abuse executive power, essentially choosing which organizations qualify based on ideological preferences.

Rep. Bobby Scott, a Virginia Democrat and ranking member of the House Education and Workforce Committee, told Inside Higher Ed that the rule “opens the door for all kinds of mischief.”

“If you’re on the Trump side of the partisan political agenda on an issue, you get loan forgiveness. If you’re on the other side of the controversy, you don’t,” he explained. “A group promoting civil rights may be in jeopardy.”

The National Council of Nonprofits went as far as declaring the new rule “unlawful” and saying it sets “a troubling precedent.”

“Federal law makes clear that eligibility under PSLF applies to all charitable nonprofit organizations,” the organization wrote. “The Education Department does not have the authority to change eligibility. By unlawfully excluding certain nonprofits, the final rule opens the door to government overreach and abuse.”

The Trump administration and fellow Republicans, however, say it has nothing to do with partisan politics and instead is focused on terminating unlawful actions that by their “very nature run contrary to the public good.”

“As the name suggests, Public Service Loan Forgiveness was intended to help meet workforce needs for employers who serve the public good. Unfortunately, the open-ended nature of PSLF has forced taxpayers—many of whom never went to college, to foot the bill for employees at radical organizations that violate state and federal laws,” Rep. Tim Walberg, a Michigan Republican and chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, said in his statement about the rule.

Education Under Secretary Nicholas Kent also chimed in, saying in a statement that “the Trump Administration is refocusing the PSLF program to ensure federal benefits go to our nation’s teachers, first responders, and civil servants who tirelessly serve their communities.”

In addition to defining what activities are illegal, the rule outlines types of evidence that the secretary may consider in the decision process, establishes an appeals process and states that the department must provide “prompt notification” to both borrowers and employers when their eligibility is at risk. It also notes that, in general, employers with “minor compliance issues” and “no concerted practice of illegal activity” will be safe.

The department estimates that fewer than 10 employers will be affected each year. But critics say that estimate is based on little research and worry the effect will be much broader.

The National Council of Nonprofits said ultimately the rule could harm millions, as countless communities depend on their local nonprofits. By putting the nonprofit workforce at risk, they added, the rule jeopardizes nonprofits’ ability to meet those needs and provide essential services.

A collection of half a dozen physicians’ groups echoed that point, arguing that if hospitals and the medical professionals they employ lose access to PSLF, it could jeopardize both physicians’ financial stability and patients’ access to care.

“PSLF is not just a loan program; it is a lifeline that allows medical graduates to choose primary care or psychiatry careers in high-need areas without being weighed down by insurmountable debt,” the group wrote in a news release. “We strongly urge the Department of Education to preserve physicians’ access to the PSLF program and recognize that a healthy America depends on a strong physician workforce.”

Galle from Berkeley believes that this lack of awareness regarding the scope of impact will become evident in court. He said that such a lack of evaluation, along with what he sees as the department’s executive overreach in issuing the rule, will give any plaintiffs a strong case in court.

“The Supreme Court in the last eight years has really been at pains to say that Congress doesn’t give agencies … the authority to be way outside their lane,” he said. “And you couldn’t possibly be further outside your lane and your expertise than ED is with this rule.”

Shortly after the department announced the final rule, multiple legal groups said they intend to sue over it.

Democracy Forward, which has led a number of lawsuits against the Trump administration this year, and Protect Borrowers, a student loan advocacy group, described the new policy as “a craven attempt to usurp the legislature’s authority in an unconstitutional power grab.”

Student Defense, a policy, litigation and advocacy organization, accused the president of “playing political football with the financial well-being of people who have dedicated their lives to public service.”

All three said a lawsuit can be expected in a matter of days.

“Congress created the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program because it is important for our democracy that we support the people who do the hard work to serve our communities,” Democracy Forward wrote in its release. “In our democracy, the president does not have the authority to overrule Congress.”

Galle said the key question in the legal fight will be whether the Supreme Court will enforce those checks and balances.

“Under any judge or justice who was applying the law as it is today, I don’t think this rule would have any hope of being upheld,” he said. “The only room for doubt is that it seems like the Supreme Court is willing to ignore most of what current law is.”

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October 31, 2025
GMercyU Unveils Crime Scene House for Student Investigations

Inside an unoccupied house, a student gingerly pushes open a creaky door and takes a wary step into a dark room—only to find the walls completely splattered with blood.

It sounds like the cliché climax in a horror movie, but for students in the criminal justice program at Gwynedd Mercy University, it’s a regular class assignment.

This fall, Gwynedd Mercy unveiled a new Crime Scene House, a three-story home that features various staged rooms for experiential learning in forensic science. Students now have a space for simulated criminal investigations, with each room configured to resemble a different crime scene they might encounter, including the blood spatter room.

Gwynedd Mercy is one of a dozen-plus colleges across the country that turn houses into mock crime scenes; West Virginia University claims the title for largest hands-on training complex in the U.S., boasting four crime scene houses, a vehicle processing garage, a ballistics test center and designated grounds for excavation.

The not-so-haunted houses are designed to give students a safe, supervised space to immerse themselves in a crime scene. Plus, it’s a great enrollment draw for students who get a thrill out of murder mysteries.

“We’re very excited about the opportunity to have students come into our program and learn the how-to, so then they walk out of here and they say, ‘This is what I want to do,’” said Patrick McGrain, associate professor of criminal justice and the program director at Gwynedd Mercy. “It really is for the benefit of creating a more professional law enforcement community.”

From convent to crime scene: McGrain and university leaders aspired to open a crime scene house on campus for years. In July, the dream became a reality when the Catholic university’s administrators identified an older building that used to house the Sisters of Mercy. The building was in disarray, and when McGrain was offered the opportunity to revamp it for students, he jumped at the chance.

The Crime Scene House holds a variety of staged rooms to practice different investigations including a kitchen, a bathroom, two bedrooms and an office. In addition, the house features spaces for other simulated experiences, including an interrogation room, an evidence area to analyze fingerprints and a model “flophouse,” or a low-rent motel room used for drugs. And of course, the blood spatter room.

“We’re going to teach students how to analyze blood splatter, the analysis of the trajectory,” McGrain said.

Every element of the house is available for students to manipulate and investigate, even the flooring.

“We have carpet laid down that they cut out pieces, use luminol and then take it over to the lab, well, what is it that we have?” McGrain explained. “Is it feces, it is urine, is it semen, is it blood? What is it that we’re looking at and what do you think happened in this room?”

Faculty can track students’ progress solving the investigations through cameras mounted in each of the rooms.

While the home at times may resemble an escape room, with CCTV cameras and a mystery to solve, “the only person locked in is the one who’s been kidnapped, and that’s been planned, and it’s a dummy,” McGrain said.

The university allocated a small budget for furniture, but a significant number of items came directly from campus community members, who donated household items or clothing.

“I even had two students who found a couch on the side of the road, grabbed it, put it in their trunk and brought it in,” McGrain said. “It is now the couch that sits in the living room.”

Because the house is designed to be ransacked and torn up by “criminals,” the university also keeps backup furniture and wall decor.

“If we want to break something, if we need to tear something, we do,” McGrain said. “The hands-on learning knows no limits.”

Experiential learning: Other academic programs, including nursing, psychology and social work, have simulation labs integrated into the curriculum to allow students to practice their skills. In the same way, the house gives criminal justice students a chance to gain career skills.

Before the Crime Scene House was established, Gwynedd Mercy faculty would set up a classroom to resemble the crime scene.

“It’s not nearly as detailed,” McGrain said. “You don’t have the furniture. You don’t have the fake drugs or guns.”

The facility has also served as a resource for law enforcement to train new detectives on how to use tech tools, such as digital photography and indoor drones.

Jerome Mathew, a junior criminal justice student, said having the Crime Scene House is a game-changer—especially for getting incoming students amped about studying criminal justice.

“They were really thrilled about seeing all the different fake drugs, money, different rooms, the cameras and how monitored everything was,” Mathew said.

Gwynedd Mercy has plans to grow the criminal science major and launch a forensic science minor. The Crime Scene House will be an integral piece of that, McGrain said. “We’re expecting to see a spike in applications and a spike in admissions.”

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October 31, 2025
Retirees as Instructors

For the last few days, I’ve been in Boone, N.C., for the kickoff conference of the Rural Talent Lab. The conference has been terrific, with thoughtful presentations and a chance to reconnect with some folks I hadn’t seen in a while. I’m still processing much of what I heard, but one line in particular jumped out at me.

The presentation was about offering programs in the trades for students in rural locations. Addressing the frequent shortage of instructors in high-demand fields, one speaker—my notes betray me, so I don’t know who—mentioned that “we’re in the golden age of retirement, with baby boomers hitting age 65 every day.” He (I think) went on to say that if colleges were to approach companies with the suggestion of having them incorporate some teaching into employees’ final years before retirement, it could act as a combination of a glide path to retirement and a way to get well-qualified and experienced people as instructors.

I read once that the sign of a great idea is that as soon as you hear it, you wonder why you hadn’t thought of it. This one passes that test.

The areas in which this would make the most sense in the short term are the trades: HVAC, welding, plumbing and the like. These fields combine technical know-how with the ability to handle real situations in the field. It’s one thing to know how to fix a pipe; it’s another to know how to handle a cantankerous homeowner or business manager who accuses you of ripping them off. That’s where an instructor with long experience in the field can bring an added dimension.

An arrangement like this could make sense for the instructors, too, given the physical demands of these jobs. As they get older, the prospect of spending less time bending themselves into tight spots or fighting metal and more time teaching might hold some appeal. When I taught at DeVry in the late ’90s, I had a fair number of students in their 40s who were switching careers from construction to computer repair; nearly all of them mentioned back and knee injuries and general physical wear and tear as motivators. It’s not difficult to imagine that someone in a field like these, approaching retirement, might want to give their knees and backs an easier assignment. Teaching isn’t an easy task to do well, but its physical demands tend to be more modest.

For the employers, I could imagine a couple of upsides. For one, they might be able to hold on to good employees a little longer if those employees could intersperse teaching with their usual work. Secondly, they’d ensure a continued pipeline of new tradespeople coming in. It’s no secret that many skilled trades are facing a retirement cliff, since they largely skipped a generation. They need newbies.

For colleges, the upside would be having experienced professionals with industry contacts in high-demand fields. Yes, there would have to be some professional development in teaching techniques and dealing with common student issues. But stepping up our mentoring game is a good idea anyway—if this is the motivation to do that, so be it.

Wise and worldly readers, have you seen this tried at scale? If so, are there any hard-won lessons you could share? As always, I’m at deandad (at) gmail (dot) com.

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October 31, 2025