Tag: administration

  • Small Business Administration to Take Over Student Loans

    Small Business Administration to Take Over Student Loans

    A day after White House officials said the Education Department would administer the student loan program, President Donald Trump announced that the Small Business Administration would be taking over the $1.7 trillion portfolio.

    He told White House reporters that the move would happen “immediately,” though he didn’t say how that process would work. Currently, federal law requires the Education Department to manage student loans, so the president doesn’t have the authority for the move, several experts and advocates said Friday.

    Neither the White House nor the Small Business Administration responded to requests for more information or details about the plan.

    In response to questions about how moving loans to SBA would work, the Education Department referred Inside Higher Ed to an interview that Education Secretary Linda McMahon did Friday with Fox News. McMahon said she’s working with the SBA on a strategic plan.

    The announcement follows Trump’s executive order, signed Thursday, directing McMahon to close her department “to the maximum extent of the law.” McMahon and others have said a smaller version of the department would focus on core functions, which many experts presumed to include the student loan program. (Trump also said Friday that the Department of Health and Human Services would take over programs that support students with disabilities.)

    Kelly Loeffler, who leads the SBA, wrote on social media that her agency “stands ready to take the lead on restoring accountability and integrity to America’s student loan portfolio.” Whether the department has the capacity to take on the program is an open question; Loeffler is planning to cut 43 percent of the staff, Politico and other news outlets have reported. The SBA runs several programs to support small businesses, including providing loans and helping with disaster recovery.

    The Education Department issues about $100 billion in student loans each year and disburses $30 billion in Pell Grants. That funding is crucial to students who rely on the government to help pay for college.

    But borrowers have struggled over the years to navigate the cumbersome student loan system and often have faced difficulty in repaying their loans. Meanwhile, the federal government’s growing loan portfolio has become a key issue for lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle. Former president Joe Biden’s fix was in part to make student loan forgiveness more accessible and make loan payments more affordable.

    Trump said Friday that the loan system “will be serviced much better than it has in the past,” adding, “it’s been a mess.”

    Agency Blindsided

    It wasn’t clear Friday afternoon whether SBA would also take over the Pell Grant program and the Free Application for Federal Student Aid—a form that millions of students rely on to access federal, student and institutional aid. Currently, the Office of Federal Student Aid, which is part of the Education Department, administers those programs. That office was hit hard by recent mass layoffs at the department, and experts have questioned whether it will be able to fulfill its many responsibilities, which also include overseeing colleges and rooting out fraud in the federal student aid system.

    Trump’s executive order pointed out that the Education Department manages a portfolio the size of Wells Fargo but with significantly fewer employees. “The Department of Education is not a bank, and it must return bank functions to an entity equipped to serve America’s students,” the order said.

    An official high up at Federal Student Aid said Friday that the office was blindsided by the announcement. Just a day before, the official said, the plan was to move the loans to the Treasury Department. Agency officials have yet to receive any plans or communication about handing over the reins to SBA or what that would entail, the official said.

    ‘Clear Violation’

    The federal statute that created FSA specifically gives that office authority to administer student financial assistance programs. Additionally, laws dictating how federal funding is allocated explicitly send money to the Education Department for the student aid programs. A former department staffer told Inside Higher Ed that the administration is “clearly circumventing the spirit and intent of the law if you were to move to functions.”

    Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington State, agreed, writing on social media that the announcement “is a clear violation of education [and] appropriations law.”

    Beth Maglione, interim president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, added in a statement that only Congress can move the student loan portfolio to a different agency; if the legislative branch agreed, doing so would take time.

    “The administration would first need to articulate a definitive strategy outlining how the work of administering student aid programs would be allocated within the SBA, determine the necessary staffing and resources, and build the requisite infrastructure to facilitate the transition of these programs to another federal agency,” she said. “In the absence of any comprehensive plan, a serious concern remains: how will this restructuring be executed without disruption to students and institutions?”

    Not a ‘Crazy Idea’

    Some conservative policy experts who support shutting down the department cheered the move. Lindsey Burke, director for the Center for Education Policy at the Heritage Foundation, wrote on social media that “without student loans at ED, there will be little left at the agency. Just a few programs—certainly not enough to justify a cabinet-level agency.”

    Beth Akers, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, like the Heritage Foundation a conservative think tank, acknowledged in an email to Inside Higher Ed that there are a lot of open questions about how the SBA move would work. But she said the announcement shows that the Trump administration understands that the recent staffing cuts “will likely make it too difficult to keep these programs properly administered otherwise,” she wrote.

    Akers noted that since SBA currently manages its own loans, “it isn’t a crazy idea that they could pull this off.”

    “Frankly, the department has handled student loan administration poorly, so the bar is pretty low on what would constitute an improvement,” she added. “I expect that the existing student loan infrastructure (and remaining staff) will likely move over to SBA, and there won’t be immediate changes in how these programs are run. That’s my hope. Because if things change too quickly, I expect that students will see disruptions that could affect their enrollments and personal finances.”

    Liam Knox contributed to this report.

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  • Trump Administration Attempts to Deport, Bar Entry to Scholars

    Trump Administration Attempts to Deport, Bar Entry to Scholars

    Earlier this month, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder and recent Columbia University graduate, and threatened him with deportation. The Trump administration said Khalil, who is of Palestinian descent, was a national security threat and accused him of terrorist activity for leading student protests at Columbia last year.

    In a public statement to The Guardian, Khalil described himself as a “political prisoner.”

    “The Trump administration is targeting me as part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent,” he said. “Visa holders, green-card carriers, and citizens alike will all be targeted for their political beliefs.”

    That prediction has begun to come true. In the past three weeks, immigration officers have targeted international students they suspected of participating in pro-Palestinian protests, raiding their dorm rooms and revoking their visas. In recent days, the administration’s dragnet has widened to include faculty members, postdoctoral fellows, visiting scholars and researchers.

    At least two of those international scholars were employed by U.S. institutions and in the country on valid work or academic visas. An Indian postdoctoral research fellow at Georgetown University was detained outside his home for alleged pro-Palestinian activity that the administration has yet to specify; and a Lebanese professor at Brown University’s medical school was denied reentry after attending the funeral of assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nusrallah.

    Another case involves an unidentified French scientist, who, according to a statement from the French Minister of Higher Education and Research, was denied entry into the U.S. because of his “personal opinion on the Trump administration’s research policy.”

    Isaac Kamola, director of the American Association of University Professors’ Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom and an associate political science professor at Trinity College in Connecticut, said the administration’s “completely arbitrary” crackdown on foreign scholars threatens academic freedom and undermines the role of U.S. institutions in global research exchange and scholarship networks.

    “I think it’s pretty clear that the administration has decided it’s going to use the force of the state to intimidate faculty and students,” he said. “They’re basically doing a kind of stochastic terrorism.”

    The administration is also targeting international doctoral candidates who participated in pro-Palestinian protests last year, revoking their visas and sending ICE agents to apprehend them.

    Momodou Taal, a British Ph.D. candidate at Cornell University who made national headlines when he overturned an academic suspension for protest activity that would have forced him to leave the country, received a visit from ICE agents on Wednesday. Just days earlier, Taal filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration seeking to block immigration officials from deporting international students for protesting.

    Taal told Inside Higher Ed he’d been expecting a knock on his door since Trump’s inauguration, and that immigration officials were targeting students and scholars for protected pro-Palestinian speech.

    “It goes against the ideals that this country espouses, or at least claims to espouse,” Taal said. “I’ve not been convicted of a crime, I’m not being charged with any crime or accused of any crime. So why should I be living in fear over what I decide to say and the causes I support?”

    Teresa R. Manning, director of policy at the conservative National Association of Scholars, said, “We see it as more an issue of security and safety than an issue of academics or free speech.”

    “The real threat to free speech is the complete leftwing domination of American education,” Manning said. “No conservatives are allowed. That’s the real threat, not our attempt to guard the nation’s security and safety and protect against potential terrorist threats.”

    The White House did not respond to a request for comment Thursday, nor did a spokesperson for ICE. A spokesperson for the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, which oversees and promotes global academic and research exchange, did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.

    Georgetown Fellow Detained

    On Monday night, immigration officials arrested and detained Badar Khan Suri, an Indian postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University, outside his home in Rosslyn, Virginia. Suri was in the country on a J-1 visa, a nonimmigrant document meant to promote academic and cultural exchange that is usually reserved for students and scholars; according to his lawyers, Department of Homeland Security agents told him his visa had been revoked.

    A peace and conflict studies scholar, he was at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service conducting research for his dissertation on the U.S. peace process in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    “If an accomplished scholar who focuses on conflict resolution is whom the government decides is bad for foreign policy, then perhaps the problem is with the government, not the scholar,” Suri’s lawyer Hassan Ahmad wrote in a statement Thursday.

    After his arrest, Suri was first brought to a migrant holding cell in Virginia before being transported to Louisiana, where he’s currently awaiting trial in the same detention center as Khalil, according to Suri’s lawyers.

    Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement on X that Suri had been detained for “spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media,” though she failed to provide any evidence.

    Suri’s wife, a U.S. citizen of Palestinian descent and a graduate student at Georgetown, is the daughter of Ahmed Yousef, former adviser to the late Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, The New York Times confirmed. Yousef, who has called the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks a “terrible error,” told The Times that he left his position a decade ago and that his daughter and son-in-law have no involvement in political activism on behalf of the organization.

    On Thursday, a federal judge in Virginia ordered that Suri be kept in the country until a lawsuit brought by his lawyers is resolved, according to The Washington Post.

    In a post on BlueSky Thursday, Virginia representative Don Beyer wrote that “the arrests of academics like Suri and Mahmoud Khalil are intended to have a chilling effect and discourage the free expression of political views which Trump dislikes.”

    A Georgetown spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed that the university was “not aware of [Suri] engaging in any illegal activity, and we have not received a reason for his detention.”

    “Suri is an Indian national who was duly granted a visa to enter the United States to continue his doctoral research on peacebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan,” the spokesperson wrote in an email. “We support our community members’ rights to free and open inquiry, deliberation and debate, even if the underlying ideas may be difficult, controversial or objectionable. We expect the legal system to adjudicate this case fairly.”

    Brown Professor Denied Entry

    Media outlets have reported that Rasha Alawieh, an assistant professor of medicine and clinician educator at Brown, was flown out of the U.S. last week despite a court order requiring the government to inform a judge ahead of any deportation. The federal government said Alawieh was returning from Lebanon, where she had attended the funeral of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nusrallah. Officials also said she had deleted “sympathetic photos and videos” of Hezbollah leaders from her phone.

    Alawieh never made it past Boston’s Logan International Airport. On Monday, a DHS spokesperson posted on X that Nusrallah was “a brutal terrorist” and that Alawieh had “openly admitted” attending his funeral and supporting him.

    “A visa is a privilege not a right—glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be denied,” the spokesperson wrote. “This is commonsense security.”

    The White House then reposted DHS’s statement with a photo of President Trump waving goodbye out of a drive-thru window at McDonald’s during a campaign stop.

    Kamola, of the AAUP, said claims of Alawieh’s supposed connections to Hezbollah were “spurious.” One of Alawieh’s lawyers didn’t respond to requests for comment Thursday.

    Asked whether Brown is defending Alawieh’s academic freedom or disciplining her, Amanda McGregor, a spokesperson for Brown, replied only that “Alawieh is an employee of Brown Medicine with a clinical appointment to Brown University.”

    “Such appointments carry a faculty title, though the employment resides with Brown Medicine,” McGregor wrote in an email.

    Interrogated for Anti-Trump Texts

    Meanwhile, foreign academics traveling to the U.S. are being hassled and turned away by border agents.

    Philippe Baptiste, France’s minister of higher education and research, told Agence France-Presse that a French scientist from the country’s National Center for Scientific Research was heading to a conference near Houston, Texas, when the scientist was denied entry and expelled. The minister did not reveal the scientist’s name.

    “This measure was apparently taken by the American authorities because the researcher’s phone contained exchanges with colleagues and friends in which he expressed a personal opinion on the Trump administration’s research policy,” Baptiste said. “Freedom of opinion, free research and academic freedom are values we will continue to proudly uphold.”

    On Wednesday, Baptiste met with counterparts from other European Union nations to discuss “threats to free research in the United States,” according to a post on X.

    As the Trump administration escalates its attacks on foreigners in American academe, international students are increasingly apprehensive about studying at U.S. institutions and scholars worry about attending conferences or accepting fellowships in the country. Kamola said the end result may be the destruction of America’s reputation as a bastion of academic freedom.

    “I think the message is: Everybody who wants to speak about Palestine, everybody who wants to argue that higher education should be more inclusive or diverse, anybody who wants to defend free speech in ways that the current regime finds unacceptable could potentially face retaliation,” Kamola said. “The intention is to not only sow chaos but to sow fear.”

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  • Columbia University faces ultimatum from Trump administration to keep federal funding

    Columbia University faces ultimatum from Trump administration to keep federal funding

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    Columbia University received a daunting laundry list of tasks Thursday from the Trump administration: Suspend or expel protesters. Enact a mask ban. Give university security “full law enforcement authority.”

    The Ivy League institution must comply with these and other demands by March 20 or further endanger its “continued financial relationship with the United States government,” according to a copy of the letter obtained by multiple news sources. 

    Last week, the Trump administration’s newly created Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism canceled $400 million of Columbia’s federal grants and contracts, alleging the university had failed to take action “in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” It also noted that Columbia has $5 billion in federal grant commitments at stake.

    The stunning move came only four days after the task force opened an antisemitism investigation into the university.

    On Monday, the U.S. Department of Education also sent warnings to 60 colleges — including Columbia — that it could take punitive action if it determines they aren’t sufficiently protecting Jewish students from discrimination or harassment.

    In Thursday’s letter, Trump administration officials said they expected Columbia’s “immediate compliance” after which they hope to “open a conversation about immediate and long-term structural reforms that will return Columbia to its original mission of innovative research and academic excellence.” 

    The letter’s edicts are just the latest in a series of decisions made by the Trump administration and Columbia officials that have put the well-known New York institution into a tailspin.

    Strong language, few details

    Officials at the Education Department, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and U.S. General Services Administration sent Columbia Interim President Dr. Katrina Armstrong nine policy changes the Trump administration expects the university to make to retain federal funding.

    The agencies — all of which are part of the Trump administration’s antisemitism task force — accused Columbia of failing “to protect American students and faculty from antisemitic violence and harassment,” along with other alleged violations of civil rights laws. 

    But despite the high stakes, the task force’s demands are ambiguous. 

    For example, its letter orders the university to deliver a plan on “comprehensive admissions reform.”

    “The plan must include a strategy to reform undergraduate admissions, international recruiting, and graduate admissions practices to conform with federal law and policy,” it said.

    The task force’s letter offers no further insight into what it expects Columbia to change or how it believes the university is out of line with federal standards.

    The letter goes far beyond what is appropriate for the government to mandate and will chill campus discourse.

    The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

    The GSA directed an emailed request for comment to the Education Department. Neither the Education Department nor HHS responded to inquiries Friday.

    The task force also ordered the university to ban masks that “are intended to conceal identity or intimidate others,” while offering exceptions for religious and health reasons. But it did not give criteria to determine why someone is wearing a mask.

    “We are reviewing the letter from the Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, and General Services Administration,” a spokesperson for Columbia said Friday. “We are committed at all times to advancing our mission, supporting our students, and addressing all forms of discrimination and hatred on our campus.”

    The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a civil rights watchdog, criticized the federal officials’ demands Friday. 

    While the group has been critical of Columbia’s handling of student protesters, it said the letter does not follow “the normal procedure for revocation of federal financial assistance for violations of Title VI.” Title VI refers to the law barring discrimination on race, color and national origin at federally funded educational institutions. 

    “While these include some policy steps that Columbia should already have taken, the letter goes far beyond what is appropriate for the government to mandate and will chill campus discourse,” FIRE said in a statement.

    A change in due process

    The Trump administration’s task force is demanding Columbia complete ongoing disciplinary proceedings against pro-Palestinian protesters who occupied campus buildings and organized encampments last year. The university must dole out meaningful discipline — meaning expulsions or multi-year suspensions — the letter said.

    The same day the task force’s letter is dated, Columbia announced it had issued “multi-year suspensions, temporary degree revocations, and expulsions” related to the occupation of Hamilton Hall.

    In April 2024, pro-Palestinian protesters occupied the university’s Hamilton Hall after then-President Minouche Shafik announced Columbia would not divest from companies with ties to Israel. 

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  • Trump administration silent on Muslim students’ civil rights

    Trump administration silent on Muslim students’ civil rights

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    Millions in cuts to federal funding. Letters from the highest education official in the country expressing disappointment. Enforcement directives to immediately address a “backlog” of antisemitism complaints. 

    The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has taken sudden and unprecedented actions in the past month highlighting its desire to protect Jewish students from discrimination. At the same time, no such imperative has been evident in investigations into or statements on Islamophobia on school or campus grounds.

    “This administration appears to be focused solely on responses to antisemitic incidents on campus,” said Jackie Gharapour Wernz, an education civil rights attorney who worked at OCR under the Obama and the first Trump administrations. “But schools need to be focused on both.” 

    ‘Lip service’ to protecting all as Muslim students are targeted

    The same civil rights law that protects Jewish students from antisemitism — Title VI of the Civil Rights Act — also protects Muslim students from Islamophobia. 

    Under the Biden administration, and especially in light of the Israel-Hamas war protests after Oct. 7, 2023, the Education Department repeatedly expressed to schools that they must protect Jewish, Muslim, Palestinian and Israeli students equally. 

    “Jewish students, Israeli students, Muslim students, Arab students, Palestinian students, and all other students who reside within our school communities have the right to learn in our nation’s schools free from discrimination,” Catherine Lhamon, assistant secretary for civil rights for the Education Department under the Biden administration, warned in a Dear Colleague letter in November 2023. 

    The Biden administration issued the letter amid what it called an “alarming rise” in both antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents at schools.

    Conversely, the Trump Education Department has made at least five announcements related to ending antisemitism in schools — none of which also expressed protections for students of Muslim, Arab or Palestinian backgrounds. 

    “They are centering Jewish students or others who are experiencing antisemitic behaviors, and they’re very clearly going after Palestinian and or Muslim students, as in the example at Columbia [University],” said Brett Sokolow, a Title VI and Title IX education civil rights expert who often works with school district administrators seeking to comply with federal regulations. “So while there’s some lip service to protecting all, I think the [Title VI] enforcement tool is going to be used primarily to the benefit of those who are experiencing antisemitism.” 

    Last week, the Trump administration cut $400 million in funding to Columbia University over what it called “inaction” in harassment of Jewish students, and warned of more cancellations to follow. Referring to anti-Israel protests that erupted on campuses over the Israel-Hamas war, the Education Department said “any college or university that allows illegal protests and repeatedly fails to protect students from anti-Semitic harassment on campus will be subject to the loss of federal funding.” 

    “This is only the beginning,” said Leo Terrell, senior counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights and head of the federal Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, in a joint March 7 statement with the Education Department. 

    Just a few days later, Trump vehemently supported Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s arrest of prominent Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, saying the move was the first of “many to come.” Khalil, a legal permanent resident of the United States and recent Columbia graduate, helped lead campus protests opposing the war in Gaza. 

    Addressing a ‘backlog’ of antisemitism complaints

    Israel-Hamas war protests erupted on higher education and K-12 campuses under the Biden administration. 

    As part of its broader effort to crack down on Title VI after Oct. 7, 2023, the Education Department’s OCR opened civil rights investigations into complaints of both Islamophobia and antisemitism. Its caseload had gotten so unwieldy that Lhamon and then-Education Secretary Miguel Cardona pleaded at the time with Congress for more funding to support investigative staff and address the high number of complaints. 

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  • Trump administration cancels $400M of Columbia’s grants and contracts amid antisemitism probe

    Trump administration cancels $400M of Columbia’s grants and contracts amid antisemitism probe

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    Four federal agencies announced Friday they are immediately canceling $400 million of grants and contracts to Columbia University over what they described as the Ivy League institution’s “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” 

    The cancellation of the grants and contracts comes just four days after the Trump administration’s newly created Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism announced a probe into Columbia. 

    The four agencies — the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Department of Education and U.S. General Services Administration — said more cancellations will follow. The university has over $5 billion in federal grant commitments, according to the announcement. 

    “Universities must comply with all federal antidiscrimination laws if they are going to receive federal funding,” U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a Friday statement. “For too long, Columbia has abandoned that obligation to Jewish students studying on its campus. Today, we demonstrate to Columbia and other universities that we will not tolerate their appalling inaction any longer.”

    A Columbia spokesperson said Friday that officials are reviewing the announcement and plan to work with the federal government to restore the funding. 

    “We take Columbia’s legal obligations seriously and understand how serious this announcement is and are committed to combatting antisemitism and ensuring the safety and wellbeing of our students, faculty, and staff,” the spokesperson said.

    The four agencies threatened to take similar actions against other colleges. 

     “The decisive action by the DOJ, HHS, ED, and GSA to cancel Columbia’s grants and contracts serves as a notice to every school and university that receives federal dollars that this Administration will use all the tools at its disposal to protect Jewish students and end anti-Semitism on college campuses,” they said in Friday’s announcement. 

     The antisemitism task force is already poised to review several other high-profile colleges. Last week, the Justice Department said the group would visit 10 college campuses, including Columbia, where antisemitic incidents have been reported since October 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel. 

     The other campuses are George Washington University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, New York University, Northwestern University, University of California, Los Angeles, University of California, Berkeley, University of Minnesota and University of Southern California. 

    Even more recently, the task force on Wednesday announced a probe into the University of California over allegations that it discriminated against employees by not doing enough to prevent an antisemitic and hostile work environment. 

    Groups raise concerns over free speech

    Columbia has drawn Republican policymakers’ ire for months over the way university administrators have responded to pro-Palestinian protests on its campus. Protesters erected an encampment on the university’s lawn in April, sparking similar demonstrations nationwide that led to hundreds of student arrests. 

    This past fall, many colleges tightened their protest rules to deter encampments. Since then, Columbia and other high-profile institutions largely haven’t seen the same long-running encampments that rocked their campuses last spring, though protesters have held sit-ins and other demonstrations. 

    Columbia itself has made several policy changes — including some that have attracted criticism from free speech scholars. 

    The university’s Office of Institutional Equity — a newly created committee — has recently been bringing disciplinary cases against students who have criticized Israel, the Associated Press reported earlier this week. 

    “Based on how these cases have proceeded, the university now appears to be responding to governmental pressure to suppress and chill protected speech,” Amy Greer, an attorney advising the students under review, told AP. 

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  • Registrars assembling – the history of the Association of Heads of University Administration

    Registrars assembling – the history of the Association of Heads of University Administration

    Many will not have seen this rather wonderful short history of AHUA, the Association of Heads of University Administration, published in 2024 and written by John Hogan, who retired as registrar at Newcastle University in 2022.

    Having been involved in AHUA for 18 years to the end of 2024, including 11 years on the executive and a couple of years as Honorary Secretary, I thought I had seen quite a lot in terms of the association’s development. However, as this report shows, I really did not know the half of it and my contributions were genuinely minor alongside the achievements of those who went before.

    In development

    The origins of what is now AHUA date back, in formal records at least, to a “Registrars’ Conference” in 1939, just before the outbreak of war. It was attended by ten people representing seven different universities (with apologies from two more) and chaired by the registrar of Durham University, William Angus (later secretary at the University of Aberdeen from 1952 to 1967 and referred to by his previous colleagues as “Aberdeen Angus,” apparently).

    Extract from the minutes of the 1939 Registrars’ Conference

    While some of the issues discussed were very much of the time, such as air raid precautions, others have contemporary resonance such as ensuring inclusion of students on the electoral register. Admittedly this was a slightly different situation given that there were university constituencies at that time and there were real concerns about institutions’ ability adequately to count potential electors. Other issues though seem very familiar including student health, international students, admissions qualifications and student fees.

    As the organisation developed as the Conference of Registrars and Secretaries (CRS), after the war it became UK-wide and spent considerable time in the 1960s discussing and dealing with an expanded HE sector such that it had 23 UK universities in membership by then.

    As noted in John Hogan’s report – and as is evident from the photographs from conferences in the 60s through to the early 90s – it was a hugely white male-dominated organisation for many years, reflective of university administrations at that time.

    Fortunately, much has changed in composition since then. Structures in universities were rather different in those days too although for the whole membership, regardless of title, a core duty was acting as a confidential source of advice and support for the vice chancellor. Further elements identified in the 1960s which continue to be a part of many AHUA members’ roles include leading a significant portfolio of university services and advising the university’s statutory bodies and other senior officers. Relative to today numbers were tiny – only around 400 administrative staff in 1953 rising to a still modest figure of around 1,900 by 1973, although both of these numbers exclude what were deemed “clerical” posts.

    It is also interesting to note that, under the auspices of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals (CVCP), a number of registrars were heavily involved in the establishment of the Universities Central Council on Admissions (UCCA) in 1961. This body, reformed as the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service – UCAS – in 1993, was for many years notable as an example of a genuinely efficient and effective shared service in supporting university admissions (although its governance structure and mission has changed somewhat since then).

    Topical matters

    In determining conference topics members were consulted via paper questionnaires on the issues of the day (although, entertainingly, this process generated a big bureaucracy which had to be scaled back). In 1964, responses were sought on the following:

    What information was held in student records, the ratio of secretarial to academic staff, the operation of telephone systems, the appointment of supervisors for higher degrees, amongst many other matters.

    Moreover, the records uncovered by the author show some problems are perennial:

    The fraudulent publication of degree certificates was a concern at the 1948 Conference. Student behaviour, and car parking both featured in 1962. Pressure to change the academic year from October–September to January–December was first acknowledged in 1965. Nearly all universities had considered the possibility and rejected it.

    Excitingly, IT became a white-hot topic in the 1960s and there were discussions over the national coordination of student records – this led to a working party involving the UGC and the Royal Statistical Society. As I recently noted here, the issue has not gone away…

    As Hogan notes, the records of proceedings appear generally cordial, although:

    The occasional acerbic comment was captured in the minutes. Ernest Bettenson, (Registrar of the University of Durham 1952 then of University of Newcastle upon Tyne 1963–1976) expressed the view that the 1972 “…White Paper was like Mrs Thatcher (its author as Education Minister) – well set out and attractive, but somehow unlovable.

    Beyond these formal matters, conferences also included cultural and social events including a formal dinner which, I am astonished to learn, was black tie until 2006 (thankfully that stopped before I joined in the following year). Other features which have, mercifully, not survived include the spouses’ programme, golf sessions and alcohol sponsorship (no fewer than three distilleries were sponsors for the 1995 conference in Aberdeen).

    Grappling with the issues

    CRS operations became a bit more business-like towards the end of the 1970s with the establishment of a standing steering committee and the appointment of a business secretary. Following the significant cuts in funding from 1981–82 the focus of discussions was very much on the consequent organisational challenges and, as Hogan notes:

    More horizon-scanning can be identified in CRS’s discussions during the 1980s than previously. William Waldegrave, then Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Department of Education and Science, predicted mergers across the so-called binary line, between universities and polytechnics, within the following ten years, when he spoke to the Conference in 1983.

    Plenty of contemporary echoes there. The Jarratt Report (1985) on management efficiency divided opinion in the CRS, with some supportive and others more sceptical or indeed scathing. Apparently, Jim Walsh, registrar at the University of Leeds, was particularly vocal:

    …warning members that he would oppose any attempt to turn the Conference into a kind of “Jarratt Enforcement” agency and distributing a criticism of the proposals under the title “A Load of Old Cobblers?”

    It is reassuring that CRS members struggled with its name back in the late 1980s in the same way as successors have ever since. It was accepted that “the name ‘conference’ was unhelpful, and ‘association’ was more attractive except for the resulting acronym – ARS.”

    However, before that issue could be resolved the CRS had to grapple with the more serious issue of the impact of the ending of the binary line. While almost every established university in 1992 had a registrar or secretary, the structures in the newer universities was much more varied meaning that it took some time to come to a full settlement on who would be eligible to join an expanded organisation.

    And then, of course, a new name was required. ARS was off the table so the “Association of University Heads of Administration” or the “Association of Heads of University Administration” were the preferred options. CVCP was consulted and it seems some vice chancellors were unhappy with the title on the basis that they saw themselves as the head of the administration. Anyway, a decision was made and the name and abbreviation everyone struggles to pronounce to this day was agreed upon.

    You’ve come a long way

    Hogan goes on to note the broader engagement of AHUA and its member with regulators and other sector agencies from the late 1990s onwards as well as the importance of its regional groupings and the key role played by full-time professional staff support from 2001 (Catherine Webb served as Executive Secretary from 2006 to 2024, providing vital continuity and vast expertise). Policy concerns at executive meetings and conferences throughout the last two decades have included governance, statute changes, pensions, the need for better regulation and a reduction in the regulatory burden.

    Other significant developments in the recent period have included development programmes, for new and aspiring registrars, growing the association’s communications and influencing activities, developing the national Ambitious Futures graduate training programme (which sadly ended as a consequence of the pandemic) and a reciprocal mentoring programme between staff of colour and AHUA launched. All were driven forward by a (much missed) former chair, Jonathan Nicholls, who also sought to establish AHUA as the “go-to” professional organisation in the sector.

    AHUA, as Hogan’s history shows, has come a long way but remains a key UK-wide sector organisation with a slightly more diverse membership than in the past, but there is still some way to go there. It’s an organisation of which I hugely valued being a part and it is great to read this short but comprehensive report on AHUA’s origins and development.

    AHUA Spring Conference 2024 at the University of Leeds

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  • Trump administration rescinds Title IX guidance on athlete pay

    Trump administration rescinds Title IX guidance on athlete pay

    The Trump administration announced Wednesday it is rolling back guidance issued in the final days of the Biden administration that said payments to college athletes through revenue-sharing agreements or from name, image and likeness deals “must be made proportionately available to male and female athletes.”

    Republicans quickly criticized the guidance and called for its rescission, arguing that mandating equal pay between men and women’s sports could cause some colleges to cut athletics programs.

    Under Title IX, colleges must provide “substantially proportionate” financial assistance to male and female athletes, though it wasn’t clear until the Biden guidance whether that requirement applied to NIL deals or revenue-sharing agreements. A settlement reached in the House v. NCAA case would require colleges to share revenue with athletes starting in the 2025–26 academic year and provide back pay.

    The Trump administration said the guidance was “overly burdensome” and “profoundly unfair.”

    “Enacted over 50 years ago, Title IX says nothing about how revenue-generating athletics programs should allocate compensation among student athletes,” acting assistant secretary for civil rights Craig Trainor said in a statement. “The claim that Title IX forces schools and colleges to distribute student-athlete revenues proportionately based on gender equity considerations is sweeping and would require clear legal authority to support it.”

    A federal judge is set to sign off on the House settlement later this spring. Several athletes have objected to the plan, including some groups of women athletes who argue the revenue won’t be shared equitably and will primarily benefit men who play football and basketball.

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  • ‘Self-inflicted wound’: Widespread alarm as Trump administration slashes NIH funding

    ‘Self-inflicted wound’: Widespread alarm as Trump administration slashes NIH funding

    UPDATE: Feb. 11, 2025: A federal judge late Monday barred the National Institutes of Health from enforcing massive cuts to grant funding for researchers’ indirect costs, a move widely decried by universities and other research institutions. 

    U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley issued restraining orders in two separate cases filed earlier Monday against NIH, including one by 22 state attorneys general and another by the Association of American Medical Colleges and other groups. A third lawsuit — brought by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, the American Council on Education and the Association of American Universities — was also filed late Monday. 

    Regarding the AAMC case, Kelley wrote that plaintiffs would “sustain immediate and irreparable injury” without a restraining order against the NIH funding cap. Along with restraining orders, Kelley required NIH to provide biweekly status reports confirming regular disbursements.

    Dive Brief:

    • A coalition of 22 attorneys general filed a lawsuit in federal court on Monday seeking to block the National Institutes of Health’s newly announced research funding cuts.
    • NIH announced Friday it would cut roughly $4 billion a year worth of funding for indirect research costs such as administration and facilities — by capping reimbursement for these expenses at 15% for current and new grants. 
    • Research institutions have previously negotiated individual indirect cost rates, with an average of 27% to 28%, NIH said. Organizations, universities and researchers quickly raised alarms about the cuts, warning they could hurt important medical research and the economy.

    Dive Insight:

    NIH framed its unilateral decision to cut indirect costs as bringing them in line with practices at nonprofits such as the Gates Foundation, which caps indirect costs at 10% for higher education institutions, and the Rockefeller Foundation, which sets a 15% ceiling for colleges and universities.

    In a Friday memo outlining the new policy, the agency said the new cap would “allow grant recipients a reasonable and realistic recovery of indirect costs while helping NIH ensure that grant funds are, to the maximum extent possible, spent on furthering its mission.”

    The same day, the agency flagged on the social media platform X the “old” indirect cost rates negotiated by Harvard University, Yale University and Johns Hopkins University — which are all between 63.7% and 69% — as well as those institutions’ endowments ranging from $13 billion to $53 billion. 

    NIH noted that of the $35 billion it spent on grants in fiscal 2023 to universities, medical schools and other research institutions, about $26 billion went to direct research and $9 billion went to overhead in the form of indirect costs. 

    Sen. Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat, described NIH’s move as an illegal violation of an appropriations bill that prohibits modifications to NIH’s indirect cost funding. Murray also said that the move will shift costs onto states rather than reducing them.

    In their lawsuit, the attorneys general argued, “Without relief from NIH’s action, these institutions’ cutting-edge work to cure and treat human disease will grind to a halt.” 

    They pointed to the legislation flagged by Murray that protected indirect reimbursements: During President Donald Trump’s first term, his administration in 2017 included a 10% cap in its budget proposal, but Congress responded the next year with an appropriations provision prohibiting NIH from modifying reimbursement rates, the lawsuit said.

    Filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, the 59-page lawsuit — brought overwhelmingly by Democrat-led states — seeks both preliminary and permanent injunctions blocking NIH from enforcing the rate cap. 

    Many in the higher education sector reacted with dismay over NIH’s move.

    The decision “sabotages the decades-long partnership that has ensured U.S. global leadership in life-saving medical research,” American Council on Education President Ted Mitchell said in a statement on Friday. 

    “This decision is short-sighted, naive, and dangerous,” Mitchell added. “It is a self-inflicted wound that, if not reversed, will have dire consequences on U.S. jobs, global competitiveness, and the future growth of a skilled workforce.”

    Mark Becker, president of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, described NIH’s policy change as a “direct and massive cut to lifesaving medical research.” 

    “NIH slashing the reimbursement of research costs will slow and limit medical breakthroughs that cure cancer and address chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease,” Becker said in a statement. APLU noted that funded indirect costs include patient safety, research security and hazardous waste disposal. 

    Jeremy Day, director of the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Comprehensive Neuroscience Center, said on social media that NIH’s cut would “cripple research infrastructure at hundreds of US institutions, and threatens to end our global superiority in scientific research.” 

    Meanwhile, institutions are grappling with what it means for their research programs going forward. The University of Michigan, for instance, said in a statement that NIH’s indirect cost funding supports development and maintenance of its laboratories as well as information technology and administrative support for regulatory compliance. 

    “This change would result in a significant decrease in the amount that U-M receives from the federal government to conduct vital research,” the university said. 

    Others echoed the warning. In a statement, the University of Wisconsin-Madison said NIH’s directive would “significantly disrupt vital research activity and delay lifesaving discoveries and cures.”

    “Indirect costs contribute to everything from utilities charges to building out the laboratories where science is done, to infrastructure for clinical trials of new medicines and treatments,” the university said.

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  • Immigration arrests at schools loom after Trump changes longstanding policy

    Immigration arrests at schools loom after Trump changes longstanding policy

    This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.

    The Trump administration has cleared the way for immigration arrests at or near schools, ending a decades-old approach.

    Republican and Democratic administrations alike have treated schools and child care centers, along with churches and hospitals, as “sensitive” or “protected” locations where immigration enforcement should only take place when there is an immediate danger to the public.

    But U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials announced on January 21 that they had rescinded the latest version of the policy, which was issued in 2021 by the Biden administration. The news was first reported early on January 21 by Fox News.

    A copy of the Homeland Security memo was not immediately available for review.

    But in a statement, a Homeland Security spokesperson said that Acting Secretary Benjamine Huffman issued a directive on Monday that rescinded the sensitive locations policy. The spokesperson said the action would help federal authorities enforce immigration law and catch criminals who entered the country illegally. Immigration agents will be asked to use “common sense” in enforcing the law.

    “Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” the statement read.

    Since Trump’s reelection, observers anticipated the end of treating certain locations as “sensitive” with respect to immigration enforcement. News reports surfaced in mid-December that the incoming Trump administration was planning to get rid of the policy. Since then, schools have been bracing for the possibility of immigration agents showing up at their doors.

    Even before this policy existed, large-scale immigration raids weren’t conducted at schools. But Trump’s policy change paves the way for immigration agents to detain parents during dropoff or pickup, as has happened occasionally in the past.

    Immigrant rights advocates worry that could lead to more absenteeism among children with immigrant parents, who may now fear being stopped by immigration agents while driving or walking their kids to school. That happened during the first Trump administration. Advocates also worry about the potential for routine interactions with school police to reveal a student or family’s immigration status, and lead to their deportation.

    Some school districts have issued explicit instructions to educators and parents about how school staff should handle an immigration agent’s presence on campus. Some districts have also said they will not permit a federal agent on school premises without a judicial warrant, and that staff will be instructed to call the school system’s lawyer if these agents do show up.

    Some of the nation’s largest districts, including Los Angeles and Chicago, have re-upped or expanded existing policies meant to protect immigrant students and families. New York City is scheduled to vote on a resolution this week that would reaffirm a policy preventing school safety agents from collaborating with federal immigration authorities in most cases.

    Others, including several Texas school districts near the U.S.-Mexico border, are taking a “wait and see” approach to avoid causing confusion or fear among families. At the same time, immigrant rights advocates say it’s helpful to inform families of their rights and show them how to make a plan in case a parent is detained.

    The end of treating schools as sensitive locations is just one of many executive actions on immigration that the new Trump administration has taken since taking office on January 20.

    Trump also signed an executive order that seeks to end the automatic right to citizenship for any child born in the U.S. On January 21, 18 states announced they were suing to block the policy change.

    This story has been updated to include confirmation and comments from the Department of Homeland Security about the policy change.

    Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

    Related:
    Trump has won a second term–here’s what that means for schools
    Trump picks Linda McMahon to lead, and possibly dismantle, Education Department
    For more news on education policy, visit eSN’s Educational Leadership hub

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  • Colombia, first nationals deported under the Donald Trump administration arrived (TeleSur English)

    Colombia, first nationals deported under the Donald Trump administration arrived (TeleSur English)

    The first flights carrying migrants deported from the United States to Colombia. The Colombian government confirmed on Tuesday that two planes
    carrying migrants had landed. Some were reportedly shackled. A total of 201 migrants: 110 sent from
    California and 90 from Texas were on board. Among the deportees were two pregnant women and more than 20 children. The cost to US taxpayers is estimated to be $100,000 to $700,000 per flight. The long-term costs and consequences of this program with Latin America, like many others over the last century, have not been estimated. 

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