Rubio paused visa interviews last month while the State Department created rules for the social media screenings.
John McDonnell/Getty Images
The U.S. State Department is rolling out sweeping new rules for vetting student visa applicants using their social media presence, according to Politico.
The new process will include screening for “any indications of hostility towards the citizens, culture, government, institutions or founding principles of the United States,” according to an internal State Department cable.
Department officials will also look for posts that signal “advocacy for, aid or support for foreign terrorists and other threats to national security” and “support for antisemitic harassment or violence,” specifically citing support for Hamas—a charge commonly levied against student protesters advocating for Palestinian rights—as grounds for rejection. The cable also directs officials to cull applicants who “demonstrate a history of political activism.”
The news comes a few weeks after Secretary of State Marco Rubio paused all student visa interviews in order to implement a new screening policy focusing on students’ online activity. The Associated Press reported that the department rescinded the pause, but applicants who don’t allow the government to review their social media accounts could be rejected.
The cable is the Trump administration’s latest effort to curtail the flow of international students to the U.S., as tens of thousands of foreign students await approval of their visas after months of delays and with only weeks until the start of the fall semester.
State Department spokespeople did not respond to a list of questions from Inside Higher Ed in time for publication.
That was the message displayed on signs across the National Mall on June 6, where thousands of veterans rallied against sweeping federal job cuts. With the Dropkick Murphys on stage and lawmakers like Sens. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) in the crowd, the “Unite for Veterans, Unite for America” rally marked a striking show of both unity and frustration.
While many agencies are facing delays or court injunctions, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is moving forward with plans to eliminate approximately 83,000 positions, or about 15 percent of its workforce. Public attention has been understandably focused on the impact these cuts may have on veterans’ health care. But staffing losses could also disrupt access to veterans’ education benefits, just as even more veterans and service members may be turning to higher education and career training.
Among the many education and training benefits administered by the VA, the Post-9/11 GI Bill is the cornerstone of financial aid for military learners, including veterans, service members, and their families. From 2009 to 2019, the federal government budgeted nearly $100 billion for the program, with 2.7 million enlisted veterans eligible to use those benefits over the next decade. And the return on investment is clear: Veterans who use their education benefits complete college at twice the rate of other independent students—those typically supporting themselves without parental aid—according to research by the American Institutes for Research.
Despite the GI Bill’s importance, military learners often struggle to access the benefits they’ve earned. Eligibility rules can be confusing, and transferring benefits to spouses or dependents involves time-consuming red tape. Many students and the institutions that serve them rely on VA staff to interpret the rules, resolve disputes, and ensure benefits are processed on time. With fewer staff, that support system is at risk of breaking down.
This strain comes amid a broader wave of federal downsizing that is hitting the veteran community especially hard. The federal government has long been the largest employer of veterans, and the current reduction in force across the federal government is disproportionately affecting them. In just one example, the Department of Defense is reportedly cutting 50,000 to 60,000 civilian jobs, many held by veterans.
At the same time, the Army is considering reducing its active-duty force by as many as 90,000 troops, amid shrinking reenlistment options. Even senior military leadership have seen targeted cuts. The result is that more veterans and service members will be leaving military service and looking to build new careers. This in turn will increase the demand for VA education and training benefits, just as fewer staff may be available to help them access those benefits.
For decades, support for military learners has united policymakers across party lines. In a time of significant change in Washington, we need to uphold our commitments to those who have dedicated their lives and careers to serving our nation. This includes a commitment to ensuring that the VA has the staffing and resources it needs to deliver on its promise—so every veteran can access the education benefits they’ve earned.
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Education Secretary Linda McMahon has repeatedly said that the February and March cancellations and firings at her department cut not only the “fat” but also into some of the “muscle” of the federal role in education. So, even as she promises to dismantle her department, she is also bringing back some people and restarting some activities. Court filings and her own congressional testimony illuminate what this means for the agency as a whole, and for education research in particular.
McMahon told a U.S. House committee last month she rehired 74 employees out of the roughly 2,000 who were laid off or agreed to separation packages. A court filing earlier this month says the agency will revive about a fifth of research and statistics contracts killed earlier this year, at least for now, though that doesn’t mean the work will look exactly as it did before.
The Trump administration disclosed in a June 5 federal court filing in Maryland that it either has or is planning to reinstate 20 of 101 terminated contracts to comply with congressional statutes. More than half of the reversals will restart 10 regional education laboratories that the Trump administration had said were engaged in “wasteful and ideologically driven spending,” but had been very popular with state education leaders. The reinstatements also include an international assessment, a study of how to help struggling readers, and Datalab, a web-based data analysis tool for the public.
Related: Our free weekly newsletter alerts you to what research says about schools and classrooms.
Even some of the promised reinstatements are uncertain because the Education Department plans to put some of them up for new bids (see table below). That process could take months and potentially result in smaller contracts with fewer studies or hours of technical assistance.
These research activities were terminated by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) before McMahon was confirmed by the Senate. The Education Department’s disclosure of the reinstatements occurred a week after President Donald Trump bid farewell to Musk in the Oval Office and on the same day that the Trump-Musk feud exploded on social media.
See which IES contracts have been or are slated to be restarted, or under consideration for reinstatement
Description
Status
1
Regional Education Laboratory – Mid Atlantic
Intends to seek new bids and restart contract
2
Regional Education Laboratory – Southwest
Intends to seek new bids and restart contract
3
Regional Education Laboratory – Northwest
Intends to seek new bids and restart contract
4
Regional Education Laboratory – West
Intends to seek new bids and restart contract
5
Regional Education Laboratory – Appalachia
Intends to seek new bids and restart contract
6
Regional Education Laboratory – Pacific
Intends to seek new bids and restart contract
7
Regional Education Laboratory – Central
Intends to seek new bids and restart contract
8
Regional Education Laboratory – Midwest
Intends to seek new bids and restart contract
9
Regional Education Laboratory – Southeast
Intends to seek new bids and restart contract
10
Regional Education Laboratory – Northeast and Islands
Intends to seek new bids and restart contract
11
Regional Education Laboratory – umbrella support contract
Intends to seek new bids and restart contract
12
What Works Clearinghouse (website, training reviewers, but no reviewing of education research)
Approved for reinstatement
13
Statistical standards and data confidentiality technical assistance for the National Center for Education Statistics
Reinstated
14.
Statistical and confidentiality review of electronic data files and technical reports
Approved for reinstatement
15
Datalab, a web-based data analysis tool for the public
Approved for reinstatement
16
U.S. participation in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), an international test overseen by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
Reinstated
17
Data quality and statistical methodology assistance
Reinstated
18
EDFacts, a collection of administrative data from school districts around the country
Reinstated
19
Demographic and geospatial estimates (e.g. school poverty and school locations) used for academic research and federal program administration
Approved for reinstatement
20
Evaluation of the Multi-tiered System of Supports in reading, an approach to help struggling students
Approved for reinstatement
21
Implementation of the Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy Program and feasibility of conducting an impact evaluation of it.
Evaluating whether to restart
22
Policy-relevant findings for the National Evaluation of Career and Technical Education
Evaluating whether to restart
23
The National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (how students finance college, college graduation rates and workforce outcomes)
Evaluating whether to restart
24
Additional higher ed studies
Evaluating whether to restart
25
Publication assistance on educational topics and the annual report
Evaluating whether to restart
26
Conducting peer review of applications, manuscripts and grant competitions at the Institute of Education Sciences
Evaluating whether to restart
The Education Department press office said it had no comment beyond what was disclosed in the legal brief.
Education researchers, who are suing the Trump administration to restore all of its previous research and statistical activities, were not satisfied.
Elizabeth Tipton, president of the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE) said the limited reinstatement is “upsetting.” “They’re trying to make IES as small as they possibly can,” she said, referring to the Institute of Education Sciences, the department’s research and data arm.
SREE and the American Educational Research Association (AERA) are suing McMahon and the Education Department in the Maryland case. The suit asks for a temporary reinstatement of all the contracts and the rehiring of IES employees while the courts adjudicate the broader constitutional issue of whether the Trump administration violated congressional statutes and exceeded its executive authority.
The 20 reinstatements were not ordered by the court, and in some instances, the Education Department is voluntarily restarting only a small slice of a research activity, making it impossible to produce anything meaningful for the public. For example, the department said it is reinstating a contract for operating the What Works Clearinghouse, a website that informs schools about evidence-based teaching practices. But, in the legal brief, the department disclosed that it is not planning to reinstate any of the contracts to produce new content for the site.
In the brief, the administration admitted that congressional statues mention a range of research and data collection activities. But the lawyers argued that the legislative language often uses the word may instead of must, or notes that evaluations of education programs should be done “as time and resources allow.”
“Read together, the Department has wide discretion in whether and which evaluations to undertake,” the administration lawyers wrote.
The Trump administration argued that as long as it has at least one contract in place, it is technically fulfilling a congressional mandate. For example, Congress requires that the Education Department participate in international assessments. That is why it is now restarting the contract to administer the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), but not other international assessments that the country has participated in, such as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS).
The administration argued that researchers didn’t make a compelling case that they would be irreparably harmed if many contracts were not restarted. “There is no harm alleged from not having access to as-yet uncreated data,” the lawyers wrote.
One of the terminated contracts was supposed to help state education agencies create longitudinal data systems for tracking students from pre-K to the workforce. The department’s brief says that states, not professional associations of researchers, should sue to restore those contracts.
In six instances, the administration said it was evaluating whether to restart a study. For example, the legal brief says that because Congress requires the evaluation of literacy programs, the department is considering a reinstatement of a study of the Striving Readers Comprehensive Literacy Program. But lawyers said there was no urgency to restart it because there is no deadline for evaluations in the legislative language.
In four other instances, the Trump administration said it wasn’t feasible to restart a study, despite congressional requirements. For example, Congress mandates that the Education Department identify and evaluate promising adult education strategies. But after terminating such a study in February, the Education Department admitted that it is now too difficult to restart it. The department also said it could not easily restart two studies of math curricula in low-performing schools. One of the studies called for the math program to be implemented in the first year and studied in the second year, which made it especially difficult to restart. A fourth study the department said it could not restart would have evaluated the effectiveness of extra services to help teens with disabilities transition from high school to college or work. When DOGE pulled the plug on that study, those teens lost those services too.
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The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Friday to allow it to move forward with its plan to lay off nearly half of the Education Department’s employees and dismantle the agency, USA Today reported.
In late May,a federal district court ruled that the reduction in force made it impossible for the executive branch to carry out congressionally mandated programs and services. An appeals court affirmed that ruling June 4.
President Trump and his Department of Justice, however, disagree with both rulings, and they hope the 6-to-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court will, too.
“The Constitution vests the Executive Branch, not district courts, with the authority to make judgments about how many employees are needed to carry out an agency’s statutory functions, and whom they should be,” Solicitor General John Sauer wrote in the emergency appeal to the Supreme Court.
States, school districts and teachers’ unions involved in the case have until June 13 to respond to Trump’s appeal, the Supreme Court stated.
This is the latest of a series of contract cuts for the Institute of Education Sciences.
Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call Inc./Getty Images
The Trump administration terminated a key contract to train college officials on how to report data to the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, a move that could further hamper the Education Department’s data infrastructure.
Used to track trends in higher education enrollment, completion, financial aid usage and other institutional characteristics, IPEDS survey data has long been critical to higher education research. But in order to access and utilize the data, institutions need to know how to properly complete the survey and researchers need to know how to navigate the database.
That’s where the Association of Institutional Research and its IPEDS training programs came in—or at least they used to.
In a social media post Thursday, AIR’s executive director, Christine Keller, announced that the organization’s subcontract with IPEDS and the National Center for Education Statistics would not be renewed for the upcoming academic year. This means that updated self-paced courses and video tutorials on how to report and use data, as well as in-person workshops on topics like how to set data-informed benchmarks and improvement plans for an institution, will no longer be available.
“When you’ve done meaningful work with committed partners for more than two decades, it’s difficult to acknowledge that it’s coming to an end,” Keller wrote. “While this chapter is closing, AIR’s commitment to supporting data-informed decision-making remains strong. We are actively exploring ways to continue offering select IPEDS training under the AIR brand to meet the needs of our community.”
But while AIR intends to continue similar training models, Keller was sure to clarify that any future coaching will come at a cost. Past resources were subsidized by the contract and therefore available for free.
The end of this subcontract will not, however, terminate other components of the IPEDS contract managed through RTI International—such as aiding in data collection, maintaining the IPEDS website and managing the help desk. (This paragraph has been corrected to reflect that RTI International contract for IPEDS.)
An Education Department spokesperson wrote in an email that the decision reflected its commitment to supporting “useful and relevant research” while “respecting the American taxpayer’s wallet.”
“Multiple federal contractors were collecting 50 percent or more in overhead costs, which is neither sustainable nor reasonable,” the spokesperson said. “We believe in the value of training users to make best use of federally funded databases. Thus, we are in [the] process of reexamining how that training might be more efficiently and effectively delivered in the future.”
College staff members and policy experts who focus on using institutional data to improve student outcomes, however, say the discontinuation of free AIR training programs will be devastating.
Henry Zheng, vice provost for institutional effectiveness and planning at Carnegie Mellon University, wrote on LinkedIn that this abrupt ending was “sobering” and that he is “pray[ing] that this program will continue on another day.”
Wesley Whistle, a project director on student success and affordability at New America, a left-leaning think tank, also took to LinkedIn to comment on the news, saying, “These trainings are vital for institutional researchers as they fulfill their reporting obligations.”
And this is not the first blow for IPEDS and NCES under the Trump administration. In February, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency announced that it had canceled nearly $900 million in contracts across the statistics center and its larger parent agency, the Institute of Education Sciences.
At the time, a DOGE official said 89 IES contracts were canceled, while other organizations put the total at closer to 170. (Previous Inside Higher Ed reporting has shown that the data being published by DOGE regarding the scope and effect of its cuts is likely inaccurate.)
Additionally, the department fired more than 80 percent of IES’s 120 employees. The Education Department said in recent budget documents that it is planning to reimagine “a more efficient, effective, and useful IES to improve support for evidence-based accountability, data-driven decision making, and education research for use in the classroom.”
Collectively, IPEDS, NCES and IES serve as the Education Department’s research and development arm, funding research on how to improve equity in education access and outcomes in the future as well as providing data on how students in K–12 and college fare in programs. So to discontinue the services that bolstered college staff members’ professional development could hurt their ability to report congressionally mandated statistics accurately, higher ed experts say.
In the end, some fear that losing the training could lead to less data-informed decision-making.
“We need to collect data both at the national level and at the institutional level. Without measuring the problem, we risk pretending it doesn’t exist,” wrote James Orlick, director of grant writing and innovation for inclusive excellence at the University of Louisville. “The belief that ‘if you don’t measure it, it isn’t a problem’ reinforces inaction and won’t solve the systemic issues we face.”
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UPDATE: June 6, 2025: The U.S. Department of Justice asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday for an immediate pause on a court order that the U.S. Department of Education reinstate nearly 1,400 employees fired during a mass workforce reduction in March. The Justice Department’s appeal calls the lower court’s order an “unlawful remedy” and says the injunction “causes irreparable harm to the Executive Branch.”
Dive Brief:
A federal appeals court on Wednesday rejected the Trump administration’s motion for a stay in a lawsuit challenging the dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education, effectively halting — at least temporarily — efforts to reduce the agency’s workforce and transfer some education responsibilities to other federal departments.
The administration had argued it could still carry out the statutory requirements of the Education Department, even with a workforce cut in half. But the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, saying it saw “no basis” that a lower court erred in concluding that task seemed “impossible.”
The ruling was the latest in a series of legal developments concerning Trump administration reforms at the Education Department. Trump, U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon and many Republican lawmakers are attempting to eliminate what they say is federal overreach and inefficiencies in education.
Dive Insight:
The lawsuit at the center of the ruling was filed in March by 20 Democratic-leaning states and the District of Columbia. They sued the Education Department, Trump and McMahon two days after the agency announced mass workforce reductions. That challenge was combined with a similar lawsuit from public school districts in Massachusetts and education labor unions.
A federal district judge last month issued a preliminary injunction halting the workforce reductions temporarily. That ruling also prohibited the Education Department from transferring management of the federal student loans portfolio and special education management and oversight to other federal agencies.
In Wednesday’s decision denying a motion for a stay, the three-judge panel said the Education Department has not shown “that the public’s interest lies in permitting a major federal department to be unlawfully disabled from performing its statutorily assigned functions.”
The Trump administration also argued that it is being forced to return staff whose services are no longer needed. The 1st Circuit, however, said its reading of the preliminary injunction shows no specific number or deadline for returning employees who were part of the reduction in force.
“We do not see how complying with those aspects of the injunction imposes a burden on the government, no less one that is ‘extraordinary,’” the court said.
On June 2, the Department of Labor (DOL) announced the launch of its opinion letter program across five agencies, including the Wage and Hour Division (WHD), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), the Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (VETS) and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA).
Opinion letters are intended to provide compliance assistance to workers, employers and other stakeholders to better understand how relevant federal labor laws apply in workplace situations. They serve as each agency’s official written interpretations of federal laws and how they apply to specific circumstances presented by individuals or organizations.
The agencies listed above have published opinion letters and similar guidance in the past. Notably, WHD has issued several opinion letters regarding the application of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), covering issues such as worker classification, compensable hours for telework travel time, and the intersection of paid leave under the FMLA and state and local paid leave laws. WHD has also issued several opinion letters on regular rate of pay for overtime calculations. OSHA has issued “Letters of Interpretation” that cover a range of worksite health and safety issues, and EBSA published advisory opinions and information letters regarding employer-provided health and retirement benefits plans.
To support their opinion letter program, DOL announced a new landing page that allows individuals to seek out past guidance from each agency and to submit new requests for opinion letters to the appropriate agency. CUPA-HR will monitor for relevant opinion letters released by DOL and keep members apprised of enforcement updates by the agencies.
On May 22, a federal judge in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts issued a preliminary injunction to block the Trump administration from taking action to close the Department of Education (ED). Specifically, the court order blocks the Trump administration from “carrying out the reduction-in-force” at ED previously announced and from implementing the executive order directing the secretary of education to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education.”
Several Democrat-led states, school districts and teachers unions filed lawsuits challenging the Trump administration’s reduction in force (RIF) at the department, arguing that the RIF would prohibit ED from carrying out its statutory functions. In the order enjoining the Trump administration from enforcing its RIF, the federal judge sided with the plaintiffs, granting the preliminary injunction because the plaintiffs “have shown that they are likely to suffer irreparable harm in the form of financial uncertainty and delay damaging student education … impeded access to vital knowledge upon which students, districts, and educators rely, and … loss of essential services provided by the office of Federal Student Aid and the Office for Civil Rights.”
As a result of the preliminary injunction, the Trump administration and ED are blocked from carrying out the reduction in force and implementing the order to close the department. The administration is also blocked from reinstating the reduction in force and executive order under a different name. ED is also directed to reinstate federal employees who were terminated or eliminated on or after January 20, 2025, as part of the RIF, and the Department of Education and the administration are required to file a status report describing the steps they have taken to comply with the order.
Soon after the preliminary injunction was issued, the Trump administration filed an appeal to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Further decisions are pending, and CUPA-HR will continue to monitor for updates from the appeals court.
The Higher Education Inquirer has received information today from the US Department of Education about Borrower Defense to Repayment claims. Here are the results from ED FOIA 25-02047-F.
We got great news yesterday: In a suit we brought with Democracy Forward, the AFT, and other allies in the labor movement, a district court in Massachusetts issued a preliminary injunction halting the Trump administration’s unlawful effort to dismantle the Department of Education.
The massive reduction in force proposed by the administration would decimate crucial services the department provides to families across the country, severely limit access to education, and eviscerate funding for HBCUs and tribal colleges.
Here’s some background on the case. In March, after having repeatedly expressed a desire to eliminate the Department of Education, the Trump administration announced a reduction in force that would cut its staff in half. Recognizing that the department was created by an act of Congress and was mandated to carry out a number of statutorily required programs, the administration claimed that it was not trying to eliminate the department but rather was seeking to improve “efficiency” and “accountability.”
The court definitively rejected this claim, saying that the “defendants’ true intention is to effectively dismantle the Department without an authorizing statute. . . . A department without enough employees to perform statutorily mandated functions is not a department at all. This court cannot be asked to cover its eyes while the Department’s employees are continuously fired and units are transferred out until the Department becomes a shell of itself.”
The court also highlighted the impact of the cuts on students, educational institutions, and unions. For example, the court found that “higher education is also likely to become more expensive for students” as the staffing cuts “will put federal funding for Pell grants, work-study programs and subsidized loans at risk, reducing the pool of students able to attend college and posing an existential threat to many state university systems such as those intended to serve first generation college students.”
The court found that the administration had violated two clauses of the US Constitution, and that its actions were beyond its authority as well as arbitrary and capricious. Therefore, the court issued a preliminary injunction requiring the department to reinstate staff and resume operations disrupted by the cuts.
Perhaps because of skepticism about the administration’s willingness to follow directives of the judiciary, the court specifically required that the administration provide notice of this order of preliminary injunction within twenty-four hours to all its officers, and that it “file a status report with this Court within 72 hours of the entry of this Order, describing all steps the Agency Defendants have taken to comply with this Order, and every week thereafter until the Department is restored to the status quo prior to January 20, 2025.”
What’s next: It is almost certain that the administration will appeal this decision and will likely seek to have the preliminary injunction stayed by the court of appeals while the case is pending.
Trump’s agenda is a clear path to setting America back in quality and fairness in education. The AAUP will continue to stand up against these attacks and fight for a higher education system that serves all Americans. We can’t do it without you.
