File photoThe Department of Education announced a new rule that would allow the agency to exclude certain nonprofit and government employers from the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, targeting organizations that “engage in specific enumerated illegal activities” or do not align with the current administration’s priorities.
The rule, which was published Friday in the Federal Register, grants Education Secretary Linda McMahon unilateral authority to determine which organizations are ineligible for the program. It takes effect July 1, 2026.
According to critics, the rule could disqualify employees of sanctuary jurisdictions and nonprofit organizations that provide immigrant family support, gender-affirming care, diversity and equity programs, or assistance to protesters exercising First Amendment rights.
The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program was established by Congress in 2007 on a bipartisan basis. Under the program, federal, state, local and tribal government employees, as well as workers for 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations, can have their remaining federal student loan debt forgiven after making 10 years of qualifying payments while working in public service. More than one million workers have received loan forgiveness through the program to date.
Two advocacy organizations, Democracy Forward and Protect Borrowers, issued a joint statement committing to challenge the rule in federal court.
“This is a direct and unlawful attack on nurses, teachers, first responders, and public service workers across the country,” the organizations said. “This new rule is a craven attempt to usurp the legislature’s authority in an unconstitutional power grab aimed at punishing people with political views different than the administration’s.”
Alexander Lundrigan, Higher Education Policy and Advocacy Manager at Young Invincibles, called the changes “illegal” and “politically motivated.”
“The administration cannot unilaterally rewrite a program that was passed into law by Congress,” Lundrigan said. “PSLF eligibility is defined by law, not political ideology.”
Jaylon Herbin, director of federal policy at the Center for Responsible Lending, agrees, adding that the regulation “is the latest in a long list of cruel tricks imposed on workers and groups who hold views or serve people this administration doesn’t like.”
He added that the restrictions “will consign millions of student borrowers to decades of unaffordable debt repayment and will worsen existing shortages of teachers, police and emergency services workers, and nonprofits who help local residents thrive and contribute to building vibrant, economically resilient communities.”
The U.S. Department of Education must reinstate, for now, canceled federal grants for student mental health services due to “numerous irreparable harms flowing from the discontinuation decisions,” according to an Oct. 27 order by a federal judge.
Sixteen states sued the Education Department in late June after the Trump administration in April canceled the multi-yearcongressionally approved funding for the School-Based Mental Health Services Grant Program and the Mental Health Service Professional Demonstration Grant. The order only applies to about 50 colleges, school districts and nonprofit entities who received the grants in the plaintiff states.
In the order, the judge said grant discontinuations were likely “arbitrary and capricious” because they were not renewed based on individual reasons, but rather were discontinued with a generic message saying that the grants “were not in the best interests of the federal government.”
Dive Insight:
On Tuesday, an Education Department spokesperson said the agency stands by its grant decisions and will appeal the order.
The Education Department announced in September that their new $270 million grant competition is accepting applications to use the federal funds from the two programs that were canceled in April. The department issued new priorities prohibiting the mental health grant money to be used for “promoting or endorsing gender ideology, political activism, racial stereotyping, or hostile environments for students of particular races.”
The Education Department spokesperson, in a Tuesday email, said, “Our new competition is strengthening the mental health grant programs in contrast to the Biden Administration’s approach that used these programs to promote divisive ideologies based on race and sex.”
Some education organizations said they were concerned that the new competition focuses only on school psychologists and does not include school counselors and social workers who also provide student mental health supports.
The canceled grants, which were set to expire on Dec. 31, were focused on increasing the pipeline of credentialed school-based mental health professionals working in rural and underserved areas and providing direct services to students in high-needs schools, according to court documents. Court records said that the Education Department valued the canceled grants at about $1 billion.
Addressing the discontinuation of the grants, Judge Kymberly Evanson in the U.S. District Court Western District of Washington said in the order that there was no evidence the Education Department “considered any relevant data pertaining to the Grants at issue,” leaving it difficult to determine “whether the Department’s decision bears a rational connection to the facts.”
Kelly Vaillancourt Strobach, director of policy and advocacy for the National Association of School Psychologists, called the ruling “a win for children, families, and educators across the country.”
Vaillancourt Strobach said in an email Tuesday that the grants “have proven essential in addressing nationwide shortages of school psychologists and other school mental health professionals.”
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Dive Brief:
Two Democratic leaders in the Virginia Legislature are questioning the legality of the University of Virginia’s recent deal with the U.S. Department of Justiceand calling for an independent review of its constitutionality.
In an eight-page letterthis week,state Sens. Scott Surovell and L. Louise Lucassaid the agreement“directly conflicts with state law, commits the University to eliminate legislatively mandated programs, subjects the University President to personal certification requirements and potentially places UVA in violation of its statutory obligations.”
The pair requested UVA Interim President Paul Mahoneyand Rachel Sheridan, the head of UVA’s board,to formally respond by Nov. 7. UVA did not immediately respond to questions Thursday.
Dive Insight:
On Oct. 22, Mahoneysigned a four-page agreement with the DOJ to eventually close five investigations into UVA. In exchange, the public university agreed to adhere to the DOJ’s sweeping July guidance against diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and provide the agency with quarterly compliance reports.
In their letter, Surovell and Lucas lambasted Mahoney and Sheridan for “a fundamental breach of the governance relationship” between the university and the state.
“This agreement was disturbingly executed with zero consultation with the General Assembly, despite the fact that the General Assembly controls the University and provides the bulk of its government funding,” they said, arguing the lack of legislative involvement could violate state statute.
When announcing the deal, UVA said Mahoney struck the deal with input from the university’s governing board, whose members were “kept apprised of the negotiations and briefed on the final terms before signature.”Since the agreement doesn’t include a financial penalty, it did not require a formal vote from the board, the university said in an FAQ.
Along with the board, Mahoney has said he struck the deal with input from the university’s leadership and internal and external legal counsel.
Surovell and Lucas questioned if Jason Miyares, Virginia’s Republican Attorney General and an ally of President Donald Trump, had counseled the university about the deal.
Miyares — who fired UVA’s longtime legal counsel upon taking office in 2022 — is up for reelection in November with Trump’s endorsement, a backing Lucas and Surovell cast as an “inherent conflict of interest.”
It is unclear, they said, if Virginia’s top lawyer is “competent and capable of providing truly independent legal advice to Virginia’s public universities in this area of the law.”
Virginia public colleges “need legal counsel who will zealously defend state sovereignty and institutional autonomy — not counsel whose political fortunes are tied to the very administration applying the pressure,” they said.
The two lawmakers, along with Democratic state Sen. Mamie Locke, previously threatened UVA’s state funding if the university agreed to the Trump administration’s separate higher education compact, which offered preferential access to grant funding in exchange for unprecedented federal oversight. UVA turned it down five days before announcing its deal with the DOJ.
Lucas and Surovell aren’t the only Virginia legislators to question the integrity of the UVA-DOJ deal. State Del. Katrina Callsenand Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, Democrats who represent UVA’s district, condemned it as subjecting the university “to unprecedented federal control.”
In an Oct. 23 letter, the pair told Mahoney and the boardthat their approval of the agreement calls “into grave question your ability to adequately protect the interests and resources entrusted to you by the Virginia General Assembly.”
“Your actions fail to leave the University free and unafraid to combat that which is untrue or in error,” they said. “By agreeing to these terms, UVA risks betraying the very principles you espouse in your letter: academic freedom, ideological diversity, and free expression.”
Callsen and Deeds called on UVA leadership to reverse the deal and “reject further federal interference.”
When asked on Thursday if Mahoney or the board had responded, Deed’s office referred to a story published by The Cavalier Daily, the university’s independent student newspaper.
In a letter shared with The Daily, Mahoney and Sheridan said that they “respectfully disagree” with Deeds and Callsen’s assessment, adding that the deal is the “culmination of months of engagement” with the DOJ and other federal agencies over multiple civil rights investigations.
They also said the institution’s deal with the federal government differs significantly from the “lengthy lists of specific obligations” agreed to by Columbia and Brown universities.
“Our agreement is different — if the United States believes we are not in compliance, its only remedy is to terminate the agreement,” they said.
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The U.S. Department of Education on Thursdayreleased final regulations that will bar organizations the agency deems as having a “substantial illegal purpose”from being a qualifying employer for the Public Service Loan Forgivenessprogram.
The Trump administration’s new rule will exclude organizations from the PSLF program that it determines to be“supporting terrorism and aiding and abetting illegal immigration,” among other activities, according to Thursday’s announcement.
Several advocacy groups immediately vowed to challenge the rule in court. They and other opponents argue the agency is politicizing the PSLF program and will use the new rule to remove organizations with goals not aligned with the Trump administration, such as providing gender-affirming care or supporting undocumented immigrants.
Dive Insight:
Congress created the PSLF program in 2007 to allow college graduates who work for government employers, including school districts, and certain nonprofits to receive debt relief on their student loans after making a decade of qualifying payments.
Many borrowers initially struggled to get relief through the program due to confusing eligibility requirements and loan servicer issues. As of April 2018, for example, just 55 workers had received debt relief through PSLF, according to a report that year from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
To address the problems, the Biden administration eased some of the program’s requirements in October 2022 for one year.The administration also released regulations that expanded which loan payments counted toward PSLF beginning in 2023.
By October 2024, over 1 million workers had received relief through the program during the Biden administration, the White House said at the time.
But in a March executive order directing the Education Department to change PSLF’s eligibility requirements, President Donald Trump accused the prior administration of abusing the program by relaxing its requirements. Trump also contended that the program sent tax dollars to “activist organizations”that harm national security and undermine American values.
The Education Department’s final rule, which takes effect July 2026, is meant to carry out the executive order.It will bar organizations from the PSLF program if the Education Department determines they illegally:
Aided and abetted violations of federal immigration law.
Aided and abetted illegal discrimination.
Supported terrorism or engaged in violence “for the purpose of obstructing or influencing Federal Government policy.”
Engaged in “chemical and surgical castration or mutilation of children” — a common conservative description of providing gender-affirming care for transgender minors.
Engage in the “trafficking of children” across state lines to emancipate them from their parents.
Have a pattern of violating state laws.
The U.S. education secretary will determine whether employers have a “substantial illegal purpose” based on “a preponderance of the evidence,” which can include final federal or state court rulings or settlements in which organizations admit they engaged in illegal activities, according to an agency fact sheet.
Employers who are notified of such a finding will have an opportunity to respond and appeal.
They will also be able to “enter into a corrective action plan” with the Education Department to avoid being blocked from the program, according to an agency fact sheet. However, if they lose access to PSLF, they will only be able to reapply after 10 years.
If an organization is blocked from the program, loan payments made by its employees will still count toward their PSLF’s 10-year clock until the Education Department’s finding takes effect, according to a fact sheet.
“However, any payment made after an employer is deemed no longer eligible for PSLF will not be counted toward the number of payments to forgiveness,” the department said in the 185-page final rule, set to be published on Friday.“This approach ensures that workers who have served in good faith are not punished, while also protecting taxpayers by preventing benefits from flowing to unlawful conduct in the future.”
Student advocacy and nonprofit groups have decried the new rule.
Aaron Ament, president of the National Student Legal Defense Network, vowed in a Thursday statement to sue in the next few days.
“Instead of supporting first responders, healthcare workers, and teachers working to make our country a better place, the Trump Administration is punishing public servants for their employers’ perceived political views,” Ament said.
Democracy Forward and Protect Borrowers, two other advocacy groups, likewise said they would challenge the rule in court. In a joint statement Thursday, they said the rule would allow the Education Department to target organizations that support immigrants, provide gender-affirming care and protect the free speech rights of protesters.
“This new rule is a craven attempt to usurp the legislature’s authority in an unconstitutional power grab aimed at punishing people with political views different than the Administration’s,” they said.
The University of Virginia is the fourth university, and the first public one, to agree to a settlement with the Trump administration over allegations of discrimination.
Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
The University of Virginia has reached a settlement agreement with the Department of Justice that will pause pending investigations in exchange for assurances from the public flagship that it will not engage in unlawful practices around admissions, hiring, programming and more.
As part of the deal, UVA agreed to follow a July memo from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi that bars the use of race in hiring and admissions practices as well as scholarship programs. UVA will be required to provide “relevant information and data” to the DOJ, according to the news release.
While the recent investigations into allegedly illegal diversity, equity and inclusion programs have been paused, that doesn’t mean those probes have been altogether closed. However, the DOJ will close the investigation “if UVA completes its planned reforms prohibiting DEI,” officials said.
“This notable agreement with the University of Virginia will protect students and faculty from unlawful discrimination, ensuring that equal opportunity and fairness are restored,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, and a UVA alum, said in a statement. “We appreciate the progress that the university has made in combatting antisemitism and racial bias, and other American universities should be on alert that the Justice Department will ensure that our federal civil rights laws are enforced for every American, without exception.”
The settlement comes nearly four months after former UVA president James Ryan stepped down abruptly, reportedly under DOJ pressure to resign as part of an effort to resolve investigations.
UVA officials released a statement as well as the text of the agreement on Wednesday.
“We intend to continue our thorough review of our practices and policies to ensure that we are complying with all federal laws,” Interim President Paul Mahoney wrote. “We will also redouble our commitment to the principles of academic freedom, ideological diversity, free expression, and the unyielding pursuit of ‘truth, wherever it may lead,’ as Thomas Jefferson put it. Through this process, we will do everything we can to assure our community, our partners in state and federal government, and the public that we are worthy of the trust they place in us and the resources they provide us to advance our education, research, and patient care mission.”
Education Secretary Linda McMahon called the deal “transformative” in a post on X.
“The Trump Administration is not backing down in our efforts to root out DEI and illegal race preferencing on our nation’s campuses,” McMahon wrote. “A renewed commitment to merit is a critical step for our institutions to once again become beacons of truth-seeking and excellence.”
UVA is one of several institutions to reach an agreement with the Trump administration in recent months, but the first public university to do so. Previously Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania and Brown University all agreed to deals with the federal government after the Trump administration froze federal research funding over alleged civil rights violations.
While UVA reached a settlement with the federal government, it has rejected other proposals such as the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” which would have required institutions to agree to tuition freezes, caps on international students and campuswide assessments of viewpoint diversity, among other demands, in order to receive preferential treatmentfor federal research funding. UVA was one of nine institutions originally asked to join the compact, though none of the original group, nor others invited later, have announced they will sign the proposal.
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Dive Brief:
New York City sued the U.S. Department of Education on Oct. 15 over the federal agency’s decision in September to terminate $47 million in federal funding for 19 magnet schools. The department severed the nation’s largest school system from discretionary grant funding after the agency found the New York City Department of Education violated Title IX when it set transgender-inclusive bathroom and locker room policies.
In an unprecedented measure, the Education Department, in a Sept. 16 letter, gave New York City Public Schools a short timeline of just three days to agree to overhaul its Title IX policies in response to the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights decision.
The lawsuit seeks to stop the defunding of the Magnet School Assistance Program, meant to help with desegregation and that primarily serves low-income Hispanic and Black students. OCR said in its letter to New York City that funding the grant is “no longer in the best interest of the Federal Government.”
Dive Insight:
Abruptly discontinuing Magnet School Assistance Program funds threw “into chaos and uncertainty” the future of the magnet schools as well as the 7,700 students who attend them, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit claims the cuts have also led to “the complete disruption” of the magnet schools’ specialized programming.
The Trump administration already sought to zero-out the program entirely in its proposed fiscal year 2026 budget. That, however, would require congressional approval.
“With this lawsuit, New York City Public Schools is fighting back against the U.S. Department of Education’s attack on our magnet program and transgender and gender expansive students,” said New York City Public Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos in an Oct. 16 statement. “U.S. DOE’s threat to cut off tens of millions of dollars in magnet funding unless we cancelled our protections for transgender and gender expansive students is contrary to federal, state, and local law, and, just as importantly, our values as New York City Public Schools.”
Districts are increasingly opting to take the administration to court in response to its federal funding threats, rather than comply with the department’s demands. Those demands often include adopting “biology-based” definitions of “male” and “female,” and in some places run against state law that require inclusive policies for transgender people.
Two large Northern Virginia school districts, for example, were among the first to sue the administration in late August after the agency decided the districts violated Title IX by allowing transgender students access to sex-segregated facilities aligning with their identities. Fairfax County and Arlington County school boards collectively have on the line $190 million, which the districts use to fund school meals for low-income students; services to students with disabilities, homeless students; and English learners, among other activities.
In these cases, the administration issued Title IX violations after very brief investigations, and provided recipients with 10 or less days to respond — as opposed to the usual 90-day timeline.
Two months after Education Secretary Linda McMahon was confirmed, she and a small team from the department met with leadership from the National Center for Learning Disabilities, an advocacy group that works on behalf of millions of students with dyslexia and other disorders.
Jacqueline Rodriguez, NCLD’s chief executive officer, recalled pressing McMahon on a question raised during her confirmation hearing: Was the Trump administration planning to move control and oversight of special education law from the Education Department to Health and Human Services?
Rodriguez was alarmed at the prospect of uprooting the 50-year-old Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA), which spells out the responsibility of schools to provide a “free, appropriate public education” to students with disabilities. Eliminating the Education Department entirely is a primary objective of Project 2025, the conservative blueprint that has guided much of the administration’s education policy. After the department is gone, Project 2025 said oversight of special education should move to HHS, which manages some programs that help adults with disabilities.
But the sprawling department that oversees public health has no expertise in the complex education law, Rodriguez told McMahon.
“Someone might be able to push the button to disseminate funding, but they wouldn’t be able to answer a question from a parent or a school district,” she said in an interview later.
For her part, McMahon had wavered during her confirmation hearing on the subject. “I’m not sure that it’s not better served in HHS, but I don’t know,” she told Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., who shared concerns from parents worried about who would enforce the law’s provisions.
But nine days into a government shutdown that has furloughed most federal government workers, the Trump administration announced that it was planning a drastic “reduction in force” that would lay off more than 450 people, including almost everyone who works in the Office of Special Education Programs. Rodriguez believes the layoffs are a way that the administration plans to force the special education law to be managed by some other federal office.
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The Education Department press office did not respond to a question about the administration’s plans for special education oversight. Instead, the press office pointed to a social media post from McMahon on Oct. 15. The fact that schools are “operating as normal” during the government shutdown, McMahon wrote on X, “confirms what the President has said: the federal Department of Education is unnecessary.”’
Yet in that May meeting, Rodriguez said she was told that HHS might not be the right place for IDEA, she recalled. While the new department leadership made no promises, they assured her that any move of the law’s oversight would have to be done with congressional approval, Rodriguez said she was told.
The move to gut the office overseeing special education law was shocking to families and those who work with students with disabilities. About 7.5 million children ages 3 to 21 are served under IDEA, and the office had already lost staffers after the Trump administration dismissed nearly half the Education Department’s staff in March, bringing the agency’s total workforce to around 2,200 people.
For Rodriguez, whose organization supports students with learning disabilities such as dyslexia, McMahon’s private assurances was the administration “just outright lying to the public about their intentions.”
“The audacity of this administration to communicate in her confirmation, in her recent testimony to Congress and to a disability rights leader to her face, ‘Don’t worry, we will support kids with disabilities,’” Rodriguez said. “And then to not just turn a 180-degree on that, but to decimate the ability to enforce the law that supports our kids.”
She added: “It could not just be contradictory. It feels like a bait and switch.”
Five days after the firings were announced, a U.S. district judge temporarily blocked the administration’s actions, setting up a legal showdown that is likely to end up before the Supreme Court. The high court has sided with the president on most of his efforts to drastically reshape the federal workforce. And President Donald Trump said at a Tuesday press briefing that more cuts to “Democrat programs” are coming.
“They’re never going to come back in many cases,” he added.
In her post on X, McMahon also said that “no education funding is impacted by the RIF, including funding for special education,” referring to the layoffs.
But special education is more than just money, said Danielle Kovach, a special education teacher in Hopatcong, N.J. Kovach is also a former president of the Council for Exceptional Children, a national organization for special educators.
“I equate it to, what would happen if we dismantled a control tower at a busy airport?” Kovach said. “It doesn’t fly the plane. It doesn’t tell people where to go. But it ensures that everyone flies smoothly.”
Katy Neas, a deputy assistant secretary in the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services during the Biden administration, said that most people involved in the education system want to do right by children.
“You can’t do right if you don’t know what the answer is,” said Neas, who is now the chief executive officer of The Arc of the United States, which advocates for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. “You can’t get there if you don’t know how to get your questions answered.”
Families also rely on IDEA’s mandate that each child with a disability receives a free, appropriate public education — and the protections that they can receive if a school or district does not live up to that requirement.
Maribel Gardea, a parent in San Antonio, said she fought with her son’s school district for years over accommodations for his disability. Her son Voozeki, 14, has cerebral palsy and is nonverbal. He uses an eye-gaze device that allows him to communicate when he looks at different symbols on a portable screen. The district resisted getting the device for him to use at school until, Gardea said, she reminded them of IDEA’s requirements.
Gardea, the co-founder of MindShiftED, an organization that helps parents become better advocates for their children with disabilities, said the upheaval at the Education Department has her wondering what kind of advice she can give families now.
For example, an upcoming group session will teach parents how to file official grievances to the federal government if they have disputes with their child’s school or district about services. Now, she has to add in an explanation of what the deep federal cuts will mean for parents.
Voozeki Gardea, who attends school in the San Antonio area, uses an eye-gaze communication device with the assistance of school paraprofessional Vanessa Martinez. The device verbalizes words and phrases when Voozeki looks at different symbols. Credit: Courtesy Maribel Gardea
“I have to tell you how to do a grievance,” she said she plans to tell parents. “But I have to tell you no one will answer.”
Maybe grassroots organizations may find themselves trying to track parent complaints on their own, she said, but the prospect is exhausting. “It’s a really gross feeling to know that no one has my back.”
In addition to the office that oversees special education law, the Rehabilitation Services Administration, which is also housed at the Department of Education and supports employment and training of people with disabilities, was told most of its staff would be fired.
“Regardless of which office you’re worried about, this is all very intentional,” said Julie Christensen, the executive director of the Association of People Supporting Employment First, which advocates for the full inclusion of people with disabilities in the workforce. “There’s no one who can officially answer questions. It feels like that was kind of the intent, to just create a lot of confusion and chaos.”
Those staffers “are the voice within the federal government to make sure policies and funding are aligned to help people with disabilities get into work,” Christensen said. Firing them, she added, is counterintuitive to everything the administration says it cares about.
For now, advocates say they are bracing for a battle similar to those fought decades ago that led to the enactment of civil rights law protecting children and adults with disabilities. Before the law was passed, there was no federal guarantee that a student with a disability would be allowed to attend public school.
“We need to put together our collective voices. It was our collective voices that got us here,” Kovach said.
And, Rodriguez said, parents of children in special education need to be prepared to be their own watchdogs. “You have to become the compliance monitor.”
It’s unfair, she said, but necessary.
Contact staff writer Christina Samuels at 212-678-3635 or [email protected].
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
In his first two months in office, President Donald Trump ordered the closing of the Education Department and fired half of its staff. The department’s research and statistics division, called the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), was particularly hard hit. About 90 percent of its staff lost their jobs and more than 100 federal contracts to conduct its primary activities were canceled.
But now there are signs that the Trump administration is partially reversing course and wants the federal government to retain a role in generating education statistics and evidence for what works in classrooms — at least to some extent. On Sept. 25, the department posted a notice in the Federal Register asking the public to submit feedback by Oct. 15 on reforming IES to make research more relevant to student learning. The department also asked for suggestions on how to collect data more efficiently.
The timeline for revamping IES remains unclear, as is whether the administration will invest money into modernizing the agency. For example, it would take time and money to pilot new statistical techniques; in the meantime, statisticians would have to continue using current protocols.
Still, the signs of rebuilding are adding up.
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At the end of May, the department announced that it had temporarily hired a researcher from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative think tank, to recommend ways to reform education research and development. The researcher, Amber Northern, has been “listening” to suggestions from think tanks and research organizations, according to department spokeswoman Madi Biedermann, and now wants more public feedback.
Biedermann said that the Trump administration “absolutely” intends to retain a role in education research, even as it seeks to close the department. Closure will require congressional approval, which hasn’t happened yet. In the meantime, Biedermann said the department is looking across the government to find where its research and statistics activities “best fit.”
Other IES activities also appear to be resuming. In June, the department disclosed in a legal filing that it had or has plans to reinstate 20 of the 101 terminated contracts. Among the activities slated to be restarted are 10 Regional Education Laboratories that partner with school districts and states to generate and apply evidence. It remains unclear how all 20 contracts can be restarted without federal employees to hold competitive bidding processes and oversee them.
Earlier in September, the department posted eight new jobs to help administer the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also called the Nation’s Report Card. These positions would be part of IES’s statistics division, the National Center for Education Statistics. Most of the work in developing and administering tests is handled by outside vendors, but federal employees are needed to award and oversee these contracts. After mass firings in March, employees at the board that oversees NAEP have been on loan to the Education Department to make sure the 2026 NAEP test is on schedule.
Only a small staff remains at IES. Some education statistics have trickled out since Trump took office, including its first release of higher education data on Sept. 23. But the data releases have been late and incomplete.
It is believed that no new grants have been issued for education studies since March, according to researchers who are familiar with the federal grant making process but asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation. A big obstacle is that a contract to conduct peer review of research proposals was canceled so new ideas cannot be properly vetted. The staff that remains is trying to make annual disbursements for older multi-year studies that haven’t been canceled.
With all these changes, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to figure out the status of federally funded education research. One potential source of clarity is a new project launched by two researchers from George Washington University and Johns Hopkins University. Rob Olsen and Betsy Wolf, who was an IES researcher until March, are tracking cancellations and keeping a record of research results for policymakers.
If it’s successful, it will be a much-needed light through the chaos.
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
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Dive Brief:
The U.S. Department of Educationrolled out the 2026-27 Free Application for Federal Student Aidto all students Wednesday, about a week before the congressionally mandated deadline.
Education Departmentofficials billed the release as the “earliest launch in the program’s history.”The new form comes with several updates, including a redesigned process for inviting parents or other contributors to add information to the applicationand faster account verification for students and parents, according to the agency.
The on-time FAFSA follows later than usual releases the past two years. In 2023, the Education Department didn’t roll out the FAFSA until the final days of December — nearly three months after students and their families usually can access the form.
Dive Insight:
Education Department officials praised the on-time release after two rocky financial aid cycles.
“No one would have thought this was possible after the Biden-Harris administration infamously botched FAFSA’s rollout two short years ago,”U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a Wednesday statement.
In 2023, the Biden administration was responsible for carrying out the first major redesign of the FAFSA in over four decades,including by paring down the number of questions applicants must answer. However, even after the Education Department released the FAFSA in December that year, many students and families struggled to complete the form due to glitches and other technical issues.
Moreover, the Education Department didn’t begin sending FAFSA applicant data to colleges that financial aid cycle until March 2024,even though that information is typically available shortly after the form rolls out in October.Scores of colleges pushed back their traditional May 1 decision deadline as a result.
In response, congressional lawmakers passed a law in November 2024 mandating that the Education Department release the form by Oct. 1 each year.The statute also requires the U.S. education secretary to testify before Congress if the agency anticipates it will miss the deadline.
This year, the Education Department began beta testing the form in early August. During that period, students started nearly 44,000 FAFSA forms and submitted roughly 27,000 of them, according to the department. The agency has processed almost 24,000 FAFSA forms without rejection.
However, this financial aid cycle hasn’t come without criticism. A report earlier this month from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, a federal watchdog agency, raised questions about whether the Education Department was adequately overseeing contracted work on the new back-end system launched in 2023 for processing FAFSAs.
In September 2024, the Education Department told GAO officials that several functions required by a contract with a third-party vendor were not yet available, including the ability to make corrections to FAFSA applications and modify eligibility rules. At the time, the department said those functions would be available by 2026.
However, as of May 2025, the Education Department couldn’t provide an update on the system and said it was no longer tracking the contractual requirements, according to the GAO report. GAO recommended that Federal Student Aid’s chief operating officer take steps to improve contract monitoring.
The GAO’s report included a response from Aaron Lemon-Strauss, executive director of the FAFSA program, who pushed back on GAO’s framing. Lemon-Strausswrote that some of its recommendations embrace a model that “assumes initial contracts can fully anticipate a system’s evolving needs.”
Lemon-Strauss, who joined the department last year,said the agency has made changes to its FAFSA vendor contracts that allow it to adapt to user needs. For instance, after the 2024 FAFSA release, department officials identified that the FAFSA system still did not allow users to import their answers from the prior year to start their new forms — a contractually required feature.
“This is undoubtedlya helpful feature and one that should be included in the FAFSA,” Lemon-Strausssaid to GAO. “Yet, rather than mechanically moving to implementing renewal capability, the team examined user data to determine where their next efforts would be maximally useful.”
Internal data showed that some 5% of users were exiting the form and not returning once they needed to invite their parents or other contributors — such as a spouse or a parent’s spouse — to work on the application.In response, the Education Department decided to prioritize redesigning the process to invite outside contributors instead of focusing on the contractually required feature, Lemon-Strauss said.
In an effort to address a deep deficit caused by rising costs, declining international enrollment and flat state funding, University of Nebraska–Lincoln officials have proposed merging or cutting a slew of programs. But one proposal has sparked particular outrage—within the university and beyond: the plan to ax the educational administration department.
If the plan goes through, faculty members and students worry the state will be left without a key pipeline to fill leadership roles at local schools and colleges, particularly in rural areas. The University of Nebraska–Lincoln is the only university in the state that offers a Ph.D. program in educational leadership or higher education, which has a distinct scholarly focus, while Ed.D. programs and master’s degrees to train education leaders can be found elsewhere.
“It’s hard for me to imagine the flagship university in a state does not offer a program to prepare future principals, future superintendents, future leaders of colleges and universities,” said Crystal Garcia, an associate professor and Ph.D. coordinator in the department. Eliminating the department would be “really doing a disservice to education as a whole in the state of Nebraska.” She noted the department is “incredibly impactful,” serving 316 current and incoming graduate students.
Administrators have proposed nixing five other academic programs as well: community and regional planning; earth and atmospheric sciences; landscape architecture; statistics; and textiles, merchandising and fashion design. The plan would potentially retain the master’s degree program in educational administration but rehouse it elsewhere.
Through these cuts, the university aims to reduce the budget by $27.5 million, in part by eliminating 58 roles—17 from the educational administration department, including tenured and tenure-track positions. University officials also proposed two department mergers and budget cuts to the College of Engineering and the College of Arts and Sciences, amid other cuts to administrative and staff expenses.
The proposal will now be considered by the Academic Planning Committee, a group of faculty, staff and students. Members of affected programs can make their case before the committee in live-streamed hearings, and the public can weigh in through a feedback form. Then, the APC will come out with recommendations the chancellor can take or leave. If the chancellor decides to move forward with the proposed cuts, the issue will come before the Board of Regents in December.
Elizabeth Niehaus, a professor in the educational administration department, said faculty were stunned by the news and are preparing to defend the department to the committee—and the Board of Regents if need be. She and other faculty members believe the department is thriving.
The proposed cut was “quite honestly shocking, because we are a strong department with great students, great faculty, with a national reputation, folks who have been winning awards for teaching and research,” Niehaus said. “So, we did not see that coming.”
The Decision-Making Process
The university’s executive team undertook “a strategic, data-informed and holistic review of all academic programs,” said Mark Button, UNL’s executive vice chancellor.
The review weighed a variety of metrics, he said, including student success outcomes—such as retention rates and degree-completion rates over a five-year period—the ratio of student enrollments to faculty members, and demand for programs as measured in student credit hours and students joining majors.
Administrators also drew on metrics for research success used by the Association of American Universities; the university is seeking to regain membership in the organization, which it lost in 2011. Those measures include book publications, research citations and awards and fellowships. Administrators also compared programs to similar programs at other public AAU institutions, Button said, and considered more qualitative factors, like whether a program was distinctive in the state. The metrics were shared with college deans and then department chairs in May.
Button said the metrics used to review the academic programs reflected priorities already in the university’s strategic plan and the criteria used for past budget reductions. Education administration was among the departments that “didn’t perform as well,” he said.
Faculty members argue the process lacked transparency; they didn’t know until a day before the proposal came out that the department was on the chopping block. They say their specific questions have gone unanswered, including which particular measures caused them to fall short and whether the pandemic years were contextualized in the data.
“We were reduced to a single number that definitely does not reflect the depth and breadth of what we do and our contributions to the field, to the university, to the state,” Niehaus said of the scoring process.
The decision felt so at odds with how the department sees itself that associate professor Sarah Zuckerman said she wondered if it was being targeted for its outspoken faculty members. Zuckerman, who serves as president of the university’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, said other members of the department are also active in the organization, as well as in Advocating for Inclusion, Respect and Equity, a faculty coalition focused on diversity issues.
“It gives me a little bit of a nauseous feeling,” Zuckerman said.
Button argued it’s “definitively not true” that the proposed cuts target outspoken departments. He said the proposal involved “very painful decisions.”
“I probably can’t underscore enough just how difficult this budget-reduction process is for our entire university community and for everyone who’s committed to an outstanding land-grant, flagship, Big Ten university here in Nebraska,” Button said. “I share the sense of pain and grief that everyone on our campus is going through now.”
If the cuts become a reality, tenured and tenure-track professors will have a year’s notice of their termination and the university has promised to develop teach-out plans for students. But students don’t have the details of those plans, and some said the uncertainty makes them ill at ease.
Korrine Fagenstrom, who is participating in the online Ph.D. program focused on higher ed administration from Montana, said she doesn’t know what she’s going to do.
Four years into her program, she doesn’t want to leave, she said, but “I don’t know what it would look like to stay—I don’t know that anybody does.”
“The idea of the program getting eliminated at my final hour is terrifying,” said Kathryn Duvall, a third-year student in the Ed.D. program. “I have made sacrifices to my family. I have made sacrifices to my own personal life and dedicated years to getting my education. And this program has spent years pouring into me and developing me as a researcher, as a writer, as an educator, as a leader.”
She also worries on a “macro level” that education in the state will suffer without the leadership training UNL provides.
“Eliminating a program like this is eliminating foundational training that produces equitable educational opportunities in our society,” Duvall said.
The Bigger Picture
University officials argue that other offerings in the state, such as Ed.D. programs at University of Nebraska–Omaha or small private universities, can fill the same needs as UNL’s educational administration programs.
But K–12 superintendents, who generally have doctorates, need more—not less—access to the affordable, high-caliber training public institutions like UNL historically provide, said Mónica Byrne-Jiménez, executive director of the University Council for Educational Administration. The proposal to cut the department has garnered national attention, because it’s an unusual move for a flagship campus or a university with a Research-1 Carnegie classification, she added.
“It’s nothing I’ve seen before,” Byrne-Jiménez said, noting most R-1 universities boast strong K–12 and higher ed leadership programs. “We don’t want it to become a national trend.”
Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy, president and CEO of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, said that while UNL is a “unique case,” she has seen a growing number of education schools or colleges merge with other programs over the last decade. The Iowa Board of Regents also approved plans last week to end the University of Iowa’s graduate and doctoral programs in elementary education, secondary education, special education and science education.
Byrne-Jiménez said such programs may be extra vulnerable at a time when Americans are questioning the value of higher education and schools are “hyperscrutinized.” Educational administration programs also tend to attract smaller cohorts, she said, because a select few want to go into education leadership roles. She fears their size, combined with national skepticism, makes them susceptible to budget cuts. But she believes these programs have an outsize effect on the long-term success of state residents that needs to be considered.
“From an external perspective, it looks like these are small, sort of niche programs that might not be generating a lot of money for the university,” she said. But “the impact is great.” At UNL, “those 300 students are going to go out to 300 schools and 300 communities.”
