Tag: Education

Education Department plans to propose regulatory changes to student aid programs

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The U.S. Department of Education plans to propose changes to student aid regulations, including those governing the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program and two income-driven repayment plans, it announced Thursday.

Under a process called negotiated rulemaking, the Education Department intends to bring together representatives from different factions of the higher education sector to hash out the details of new regulations.

If the representatives reach consensus on new policies, the negotiated rulemaking process requires the Education Department to adopt their regulatory language in its proposal, except in limited circumstances. If negotiators don’t reach agreement, however, the agency is free to write its own rules.

Before that process begins, the Education Department said it will seek public feedback on “deregulatory ideas” for Title IV student aid programs.

“This process will focus on how the Department can rightsize Title IV regulations that have driven up the cost of college and hindered innovation,” Acting Under Secretary James Bergeron said in a statement. “Not only will this rulemaking serve as an opportunity to identify and cut unnecessary red tape, but it will allow key stakeholders to offer suggestions to streamline and improve federal student aid programs.”

Part of the negotiated rulemaking process will focus on the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. PSLF, enacted in 2007 by President George W. Bush, forgives the student loan balances of borrowers who make 10 years of payments and hold public service jobs, such as working for the government or a nonprofit.

The program has come under fire from President Donald Trump, who signed an executive order last month aiming to limit who is eligible.

The order alleges that the PSLF program has “misdirected tax dollars into activist organizations” and tells U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon to propose program revisions barring borrowers from receiving forgiveness if they work for organizations that “have a substantial illegal purpose.”

The directive also accused the program of providing premature debt relief to borrowers. The Biden administration temporarily relaxed PSLF rules to make it easier for borrowers to receive debt relief through the program, which had extremely high denial rates due to confusing eligibility requirements and chronic loan servicer issues.

Some groups have pushed back on the executive order, arguing that it’s an attempt to revoke student loan forgiveness eligibility for borrowers working for nonprofits with missions that the Trump administration doesn’t support.

In a statement, Mike Pierce, executive director of Student Borrower Protection Center, called the order “blatantly illegal and an all-out weaponization of debt intended to silence speech that does not align with President Trump’s MAGA agenda.”

The Education Department is also planning to review regulations for two income-driven repayment plans: Pay as You Earn and Income-Contingent Repayment.

The agency restored the ability for borrowers to enroll in these programs late last month after previously taking down the online application forms. The freeze on the programs came in response to an appeals court ruling blocking a Biden-era income-driven repayment plan — Saving on a Valuable Education.

The suspension of the plans drew a legal challenge from the American Federation of Teachers. The Education Department restored access to them less than a day after the union petitioned a judge for emergency intervention, according to a news release.

Plans for negotiated rulemaking come amid the Trump administration’s move to dismantle the Education Department and move its responsibilities to other agencies.

For example, Trump said he plans to move the department’s student loan portfolio to the newly-downsized Small Business Administration. Both conservatives and liberals have expressed concern that the SBA won’t have the staff or expertise to perform the job.

Fully eliminating the Education Department would require congressional approval.

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April 4, 2025
As Universities Yield to Trump, Higher Ed Unions Fight Back

From the day he retook office, President Donald Trump’s campaign to disrupt higher education has been unrelenting. He’s targeted diversity, equity and inclusion. His administration slashed more than a billion dollars in federal grants and contracts for universities, and it plans to cut more. It’s also attempted to deport pro-Palestinian international scholars, accusing them of sympathizing with terrorism.

Prominent—or infamous—among the administration’s escalating actions was its decision last month to cut $400 million from Columbia University for allegedly failing to address on-campus antisemitism. Trump officials followed this by demanding that the university, among other things, place its Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies Department in academic receivership.

As the disruption has mounted, many college and university presidents have kept silent. But unions representing higher ed employees have stepped up to the plate. They’ve protested in Washington, D.C., and on their campuses, organized open letters and filed a flurry of lawsuits against the Trump administration. Union leaders say they are filling a void in an existential fight for higher ed’s future. They wish others would join their resistance, but their unified strength in numbers may protect their members from federal retaliation in ways that higher ed officials aren’t.

Concerns about higher ed’s future under Trump and calls for a forceful response to his actions pervaded a recent gathering on collective bargaining in higher ed. The conference—held in Manhattan just two days after Columbia announced it would capitulate to multiple demands the administration made—offered a snapshot into a large pocket of resistance.

We couldn’t actually be better positioned to fight back against the kind of authoritarian attacks that we’re seeing.”

—Ian Gavigan, national director of Higher Ed Labor United

William A. Herbert, executive director of the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions, kicked off the event addressing what he has called the Trump administration’s “assault on higher education.”

“We gather today during a very perilous time. To paraphrase Tom Paine, these are the times that try our souls,” Herbert said, adding that “in this crisis, we must care for ourselves and others—particularly our students, our immigrants and others most vulnerable in this time of danger.”

He spoke to roughly 150 people gathered in the historic home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Invoking the wartime president’s Four Freedoms speech, Herbert said FDR’s listed freedoms—of speech and worship, and from want and fear—“are threatened more today than ever before. So it is our obligation to those who came before us to fight for freedom and to fight against tyranny.”

Rejecting nonintervention, Herbert said, “Neutrality in defense of higher education’s mission and the principles of collective bargaining is not an option. We must reject appeasement. We must reject capitulation to the enemies of higher education and collective negotiations.”

As the conference progressed last week, unions showed they weren’t capitulating. The American Association of University Professors, an organization of scholars that also represents many of them as a union, alongside the American Federation of Teachers, with which the AAUP is affiliated, filed together or individually three lawsuits against the Trump administration’s moves. These suits seek to stop the dismantling of the Education Department, end deportations of noncitizen students and faculty who demonstrated for Palestinians, and restore Columbia’s lost $400 million.

Even before last week, the AFT had sued the Education Department to stop it from enforcing a sweeping Dear Colleague letter targeting DEI, and together with the AAUP sued the department and Trump to overturn his anti-DEI executive orders. The AAUP and its partners did secure a temporary injunction blocking parts of the anti-DEI orders—an early victory—but an appeals court overturned that court order. (Other higher ed groups and unions have sued, but the AAUP and AFT are involved in multiple lawsuits that Inside Higher Ed is tracking.)

Atop the litigation, presidents and members of those unions and others—such as the United Autoworkers, a major organizer of graduate student workers—have rallied in Washington, D.C., against cuts to universities and federal research agencies. This week, the UAW joined other, nonunion organizations in suing to overturn the administration’s cancellations of National Institutes of Health grants.

Attempts at more national shows of force are coming. Across dozens of campuses, multiple unions are sponsoring a “Kill the Cuts” day of action on April 8, focused on reversing the NIH cuts and other federal funding reductions, followed by a more general protest April 17. It all adds up to campus unions taking a public stand where administrators largely haven’t.

“I think that labor needs to fill the vacuum of leadership we’re seeing in the sector,” said Todd Wolfson, national president of the AAUP. “I don’t see another way forward.”

A Large Presence

Expecting powerful resistance from labor organizations might seem irrational in the U.S., where union membership among workers over all dropped to 10 percent in 2024—a record low since data collection began in 1983. But the picture is starkly different when you look at faculty and grad student workers alone.

Bucking the national trend, grad workers’ unionized ranks increased 133 percent from 2012 to the start of 2024. Roughly 38 percent of them are now unionized. That’s according to a report released last year by Herbert’s collective bargaining study center at Hunter College; Herbert said the share of unionized grad workers is even greater today, but he didn’t have an updated figure.

The number of unionized faculty also increased over that 12-year period, from roughly 374,000 in 2012 to 402,000 in January 2024. Roughly 27 percent of faculty are now unionized. And the Biden years saw a growing phenomenon of postdoctoral and undergraduate student workers unionizing. Trump has shaken up the National Labor Relations Board and experts predict a rollback in rights for union workers, but higher ed strikes are continuing into his administration in Massachusetts and California.

“We have more power now on our campuses than we’ve had in recent memory,” said Ian Gavigan, national director of Higher Ed Labor United, or HELU, and formerly a unionized grad worker himself. “And we couldn’t actually be better positioned to fight back against the kind of authoritarian attacks that we’re seeing.”

“I’m scared,” Gavigan said, but “that power gives me hope.”

The White House didn’t return Inside Higher Ed’s requests for comment.

HELU seeks to unify all types of higher ed workers—including nonacademic workers, and regardless of whether they’re unionized or not—into a single, national coalition. Gavigan spoke during a late-addition panel to the conference. (The whole conference was renamed, after Trump’s election, “Unity in Defense of Higher Education and Collective Bargaining.”)

Panelists and the audience discussed the Trump administration’s ongoing targeting of higher ed and how to respond.

“We are under absolutely relentless assault,” said Rebecca Givan, general vice president of the Rutgers University AAUP-AFT and a HELU steering committee member. “It’s constant, it’s everywhere, it’s in every direction, but it would be so much worse if we didn’t have our unions. And so we have these structures and we need to use them to fight back.”

Givan said that “none of us have been sleeping,” but “if we can’t organize within our unions to fight back, we have nothing.” She said unions have to work within state and federal politics and agencies, fighting for changes such as higher taxes on the rich to fund higher ed.

“We also have to give our university administrators a strong invitation to do the right thing,” Givan said. “And if they do not, we have to fill that leadership vacuum. We cannot let them back down. We cannot let them do a Columbia and capitulate.”

Some other higher ed groups beyond unions are resisting as well. The American Council on Education, which represents colleges and universities, has sued to stop the NIH from capping reimbursements for costs indirectly related to research. As for why many presidents aren’t publicly speaking up, Jon Fansmith, ACE’s senior vice president for government relations, told Inside Higher Ed that they have an “incredible tightrope to walk.”

“They are responsible for the jobs and livelihood of thousands—tens of thousands—of people in some cases,” Fansmith said.

They’re also responsible for the continuation of university work that includes treating patients and other important concerns. Speaking up could come at a price. Fansmith noted that the Trump administration froze about half of Princeton University’s federal grants after President Christopher Eisgruber wrote in The Atlantic that the “Trump administration’s recent attack on Columbia” represented “the greatest threat to American universities since the Red Scare of the 1950s.”

Wolfson, the AAUP president, told Inside Higher Ed that individual university presidents might not speak out because that puts targets on their backs. But there’s “no reason why we haven’t seen a letter signed by 1,000 presidents” speaking out against what the administration did to Columbia, Wolfson said.

“It’s a real disappointment,” he said, adding that “labor has to step in and be the main focal point of a strong, powerful and vigorous response to the federal government.”

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April 4, 2025
Higher Ed Under Attack Makes the Work More Important

Earlier this week, University of North Carolina professor and New York Times columnist Tressie McMillan Cottom remarked on BlueSky, “It’s so weird that we’re all working like this is just a normal country.”

Indeed, I have recently been struck repeatedly by the immediate juxtaposition of the banal, logistical work of being a freelance writer and speaker and the fact that the stuff I write and speak about—teaching, academia, et al.—are under concerted attack as part of a larger assault on democratic institutions, to the point where one wonders if they’re going to collapse entirely.

I’ve accepted speaking invites for six months from now wondering if we will still have operating higher education institutions six months from now. I mean, I think we will, but at this moment I wouldn’t 100 percent guarantee it, which is a strange thing to even consider given that some of these places are literally hundreds of years old.

I even just accepted an invitation to speak at a teachers’ conference in Alberta, Canada, in April 2026, and even as I signed the contract I wondered if we will still be able to travel freely between the U.S. and Canada by then.

It strikes me that part of the strategy of those currently committing these assaults on democracy is to create this kind of cognitive dissonance. Every day brings a new example of something we didn’t think could happen: disappearing people to foreign countries without even a semblance of due process, dismantling the federal infrastructure around cancer research, a president speculating about a third term and it being taken seriously as a question of legality.

That’s just this week, by the way.

The discordancy is probably greater for those working in or adjacent to higher ed, as the sector finds itself so directly in the Trump administration crosshairs. There is more not-normal in education than elsewhere right now, though the recently announced tariffs suggest that not normal is now going to be extended worldwide.

It strikes me that we are on one of two possible trajectories. One is essentially a slide into what scholars call competitive authoritarianism, where there are some external trappings of democratic society like courts and elections still existing, but where the fix is largely in as to who and what maintains power. Hungary and Turkey are the two most obvious examples that experts cite, but we’re seeing plenty of evidence for joining them right here at home.

The so-called Big Law firms that have capitulated to Trump and pledged to do hundreds of millions of dollars of legal work in exchange for being removed from the target list seem like examples of organizations that are making their bet that they can survive in a nondemocracy provided they’re willing to curry favor with power. Republican office holders seeking to carve out exceptions from Trump tariffs for their state’s industries are another example.

So too are the higher ed institutions, such as Columbia, bending the knee to Trump. They apparently view their continued existence—be that in a democratic society or something else—as more important than protecting values like academic freedom or the First Amendment. Noah Feldman, a Harvard Law professor who apparently is an expert on First Amendment law, sees these responses (as characterized by The New York Times) as “rational,” saying, “Sometimes people who are eager for the university to get up and make big statements have a slightly unrealistic conception of what the real-world effect of those statements would be.”

One of the upsides of the present turmoil—and it is a very small upside, I admit—is that folks are showing their true stances when it comes to the occasional fraught intersection of their purported values and material reality. Here is an esteemed First Amendment lawyer who is willing to countenance an unprecedented assault on academic freedom because the “real-world” consequences are apparently too great.

I have often lamented in this space how there has appeared to be a significant disconnect between the lofty ideals attached to higher education and how many higher education institutions act when they have a choice between living their mission or funding their operations. Feldman makes it clear which side of the divide he sits on, and he is not alone.

The other possible trajectory is that the sheer incompetence and erratic nature of Trump and those who surround him will lead to an unraveling of the assault as it implodes under the weight of public disapproval. The recent election results in Wisconsin and Florida, which showed a significant swing toward Democrats, suggest that if the public is activated and motivated, there is sufficient sentiment to defeat Trump and Republicans at the ballot box—provided we still have elections, that is.

Personally, I keep returning to the question I asked back in February: “What’s next for higher ed?” My argument that one era was over and another is to come has only been made stronger over the last month and a half. There is no going back for Columbia University. They have chosen to be something other than what they previously claimed to be. I’m certain Columbia will survive in some form, but we should not be asked to pretend that they are an example of the values we’d like to claim for higher education institutions.

Most days, I am both freaked out and hopeful, which is maybe my answer to Cottom’s musing about how we’re able to act like we’re living in a normal country. Part of the time I’m freaked out, certain that we are decidedly not a normal country and we are hurtling toward disaster.

But other times I am doing work that I think advances the values of free inquiry and personal freedom and development. I imagine going to some college or university six months from now, where we will talk about the importance of human expression through the act of writing, and then after that maybe I sit down to write a blog post, forcing myself to grapple with the world in front of me and make sense of it, even when, or especially when, it appears senseless.

Next thing you know, some thoughts have been gathered and you share them with the world.

When I first read the BlueSky post, I imagined that Cottom was thinking that we’re experiencing a disconnect or disassociation that allows us to deny the weirdness and even terror happening around us, but I think it’s the opposite.

I think it’s a sign that the work matters and that we must throw our continued support behind the leaders and institutions who are pledging to make the work that remains consistent with educational values possible. I don’t know how Feldman’s soft capitulation gets us there.

Bring me the fighters.

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April 4, 2025
Florida Atlantic Police Seek Immigration Enforcement Powers

Florida Atlantic University reportedly has a pending agreement with the federal government to allow its campus police department to question and detain individuals who are suspected of being in the U.S. without legal authorization, The Florida Phoenix reported.

The public university located in Boca Raton is a Hispanic-serving institution.

If FAU police acquire immigration enforcement authority, the university would seemingly be the first in the nation to deputize campus cops as federal enforcement agents, the Phoenix noted.

However, it appears that all other Florida institutions with sworn police departments will follow FAU’s lead to comply with a February directive from Gov. Ron DeSantis requiring state law enforcement agencies to enter into an agreement “to execute functions of immigration enforcement within the state” so “deportations can be carried out more efficiently.”

“All state law enforcement agencies are expected to follow the governor’s Feb. 19 directive on working U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” FAU spokesperson Joshua Glanzer wrote to Inside Higher Ed. “This includes FAUPD and other state university police departments.”

The move comes after Florida Atlantic hired former GOP lawmaker Adam Hasner to be president in February. Hasner, who once boasted of being “the most partisan Republican in Tallahassee,” served in the Florida House of Representatives from 2002 to 2010. Prior to taking the top job at FAU, Hasner was an executive at the GEO Group, a for-profit prison company.

The GEO Group currently runs more than a dozen U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers in California, Florida, Texas and various other states, according to its website.

Hasner’s history with the GEO Group was a matter of contention for students and others during the hiring process; some raised objections during public forums about his for-profit prison past. Other critics expressed concerns about his lack of administrative experience in higher education.

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April 4, 2025
Don’t Give Trump Student, Faculty Names, Nationalities

The American Association of University Professors is warning college and university lawyers not to provide the U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights the names and nationalities of students or faculty involved in alleged Title VI violations.

The AAUP’s le t ter comes after The Washington Post reported last week that Education Department higher-ups directed OCR attorneys investigating universities’ responses to reports of antisemitism to “collect the names and nationalities of students who might have harassed Jewish students or faculty.” The department didn’t respond to Inside Higher Ed’s requests for comment Thursday.

In a 13-page Wednesday letter to college and university general counsels’ offices, four law professors serving as AAUP counsel wrote that higher education institutions “are under no legal compulsion to comply.” The AAUP counsel further urged them “not to comply, given the serious risks and harms of doing so”—noting that the Trump administration is revoking visas and detaining noncitizens over “students’ and faculty members’ speech and expressive activities.” The administration has targeted international students and other scholars suspected of participating in pro-Palestinian advocacy.

Title VI of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination based on, among other things, shared ancestry, which includes antisemitism. But the AAUP counsel wrote that “Title VI does not require higher education institutions to provide the personally identifiable information of individual students or faculty members so that the administration can carry out further deportations.”

And Title VI investigations, they wrote, “are not intended to determine whether the students and faculty who attend these schools have violated any civil rights laws, let alone discipline or punish students or faculty.” They wrote that investigations are instead “intended to determine whether the institution itself has discriminated.”

Providing this information to the federal government may violate the First Amendment rights of those targeted, plus the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and state laws, they wrote, adding that this information shouldn’t be turned over without “clear justification for the release of specific information related to a legitimate purpose in the context of a particular active investigation.”

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April 4, 2025
L.A. Community Colleges, CSUs Partner on Nursing Initiative

After tussling over proposed legislation to allow community colleges to offer a bachelor’s of nursing degree, Los Angeles County’s 19 community colleges and the California State University system are working together to tackle local nursing shortages. The partnership, spearheaded by Compton College, may signal a new phase of cooperation between the two systems.

The Nursing 2035 Initiative aims to foster collaboration between community colleges, the CSU system and other stakeholders; conduct research; and devise strategies to graduate more registered nurses in the region over the next decade. The project also includes the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation, the Department of Economic Opportunity with the County of Los Angeles and California Competes, an organization focused on higher ed and workforce development in the state.

Keith Curry, president of Compton College, said the need for more nurses in the region is dire. Lightcast, a labor market analytics firm, projected 6,454 job openings for registered nurses in Los Angeles County annually through 2035, but degree-completion data from 2023 shows local colleges only produced 5,363 graduates with relevant degrees that year.

Curry described a nearby medical clinic’s emergency room as “flooded” with patients at the same time aspiring nurses face barriers to entering the profession, such as vying for limited spots in nursing programs. Programs, meanwhile, struggle to grow because of challenges with retaining nursing faculty, who can find better wages working in hospitals, and competition for scarce clinical placements.

The goal is “really trying to address health disparities in the community I’m from, and nursing is just another one of those issues that we have to address,” Curry said.

Teamwork After Tensions

The move comes after Gov. Gavin Newsom encouraged more CSU–community college partnerships on nursing last year after he vetoed two bills that would have allowed some community colleges to offer B.S.N. programs as part of a pilot program.

At the time, community college leaders argued that expanding their nursing offerings beyond associate degrees would make nursing education more affordable and combat nurse shortages in the state. But CSU leaders opposed the legislation, countering that the new programs would be duplicative and force the CSU’s existing programs to compete for resources, like clinical placements. (The two systems have also cyclically battled over community college baccalaureate degrees since the state allowed them a decade ago.)

Newsom came down on the CSUs’ side.

“All segments of higher education should continue to focus on building these programs together,” he wrote in one of his veto messages, “and I am concerned this bill could inadvertently undermine that collaboration.”

The initiative is an attempt to do just that, Curry said.

“It’s not us versus them,” he said. “It’s about how can we partner together to solve a problem. So, I felt that CSU has to be the table.”

Jose Fierro, president of Cerritos College and co-chair of the Los Angeles Regional Consortium, a coalition of L.A. County’s 19 colleges, said he and other community college leaders were “disappointed” by Newsom’s rejection of community college B.S.N. degrees because he felt like they would help his place-bound students. He said his campus is nine miles on average from local universities.

Students “may not be within driving distance because they would have to uproot their families, or because of the high cost of housing, they wouldn’t be able to move to a different city to be able to access these programs,” he said.

At the same time, he believes the collaborative approach will benefit students.

“We are bringing county representatives, hospital representatives, state officials, California State and community colleges to look at our programs and our shortage of nurses in a comprehensive manner,” to think about “how can we work together to meet the needs of the community?”

An Example for Others

Some nursing partnerships between community colleges and CSUs already exist. For example, California State University, Northridge, has an A.D.N.-B.S.N. Community College Collaborative Program, which allows students earning nursing associate degrees at partnering community colleges to earn a B.S.N. on an accelerated timeline. A program at Cal State Long Beach also allows nursing associate degree students to take B.S.N. classes while in community college.

Nathan Evans, deputy vice chancellor for academic and student affairs and chief academic officer at the CSU Office of the Chancellor, believes the Nursing 2035 Initiative can serve as an example of how community college and CSU leaders can strategically confront local nursing shortages together.

“The boundaries of our institutions don’t have to be what they were in the past,” he said. “Our hope is that this is a model of what collaboration looks like between our segments and there’s a lot less friction in terms of the student experience, that there are clear road maps for students, particularly in the nursing field.”

As a first step, the group plans to research the region’s nursing education and workforce and release a report in the fall with policy and budget recommendations on how to expand nursing programs in the area. The goal is to work on the recommendations through 2035.

Evans said the initiative is “using data to really drive a needs assessment and then allow that to lead us to, what are the ways we collectively can respond?”

The hope is that process leads to new, innovative partnerships, said Fierro. For example, he can imagine CSUs offering B.S.N. programs on community college campuses, or partnering with community colleges on collaborative programs, so that students who struggle to commute to universities because of work or family obligations have more options.

“To me, the main objective is to ensure that we bring that value to the local communities,” he said, “regardless of whose name is issuing the diploma.”

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April 4, 2025
Trade War Squeezes Science Out of Canadian Election Campaign

Mark Carney’s whirlwind start as Canadian prime minister has seen his party surge in the polls against the backdrop of Donald Trump’s threats but has provided little time to flesh out the newcomer’s policies on higher education and science.

When Justin Trudeau announced his resignation in January, the Liberal Party was trailing the Conservatives by more than 20 percentage points and was only narrowly ahead of the New Democratic Party.

But since Trump started a trade war with what he has belittled as his “51st state,” the Liberals have rebounded remarkably in the polls and are now favorites to retain power in the snap election on April 28.

Although the federal government is the primary player when it comes to investments in research and innovation in Canada, higher education has seldom been a major issue in national elections, said Glen Jones, professor of higher education at the University of Toronto.

“Not surprisingly, the entire election is focusing on the trade war that has been initiated by President Trump,” he said.

“The Carney platform, at least to date, has largely been about providing support and stability to individuals and industries that will be directly impacted by tariffs.”

Carney has been focusing primarily on positioning himself as the leader best able to respond to the new, evolving relationship with the U.S.—a strategy that seems to be working, added Jones.

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s echoes of Trump—and his promises to “defund wokeism and fight antisemitism” in universities—have been a disaster for his party since the start of the year, particularly when contrasted with Carney’s “elbows up” mantra.

Sarah Laframboise, executive director of Evidence for Democracy, a science policy nonprofit organization, said Carney’s background—as a former United Nations special envoy for climate action—suggests that he will remain committed to his views on climate policy, and that his pro-economic growth platform could translate into targeting investments in research, innovation and artificial intelligence.

“We will also likely see an increased focus on defense-related research, particularly around Arctic security and collaborative defense technologies. However, it remains unclear if this will extend to basic research,” said Laframboise.

“Additionally, his restrictive stance on international student admissions could have significant consequences for Canada’s higher education sector.”

It remained to be seen what impact accusations of plagiarism aimed at Carney dating from his time at the University of Oxford will have on the race.

Carney, who has never previously held elected office, earned a master’s degree and a doctorate in the U.K. before later going on to become governor of the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020.

Marc Johnson, professor of biology at Toronto’s Mississauga campus, said Trudeau made important investments in science funding during the last federal budget, but it was only a “partial investment that stanched the bleeding” from previous mistakes.

“The investment fell short of reinvigorating funding for science, tech and the innovation sector,” he said.

“If the Carney Liberals are elected to power, I think we can expect the previous government’s investment to stay … but will they double down on that investment?”

Having examined Carney’s website—which mentions artificial intelligence 11 times, innovation once and science not at all—Johnson said the prime minister’s priorities in future funding seemed fairly clear.

With either Carney or Poilievre in charge, he said the next government will have an “amazing opportunity” to invest in science, technology and innovation.

“Given the USA’s deep cuts to science funding, Canada has the opportunity to leap forward as a global leader in strategic areas, but only if we increase our investment in science, training, technology and mobilization of the innovations that come from these activities.”

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April 4, 2025
Education Department Plans to Review Rules for PSLF, IDR

The Education Department will kick off the lengthy rule-making process later this month with a pair of hearings.

The department is planning to consider regulatory changes to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, income-driven repayment plans and “other topics that would streamline current federal student financial assistance programs,” according to a Federal Register notice.

Hearings are just the first step in negotiated rule making, which also includes convening an advisory committee to weigh in on regulatory changes over a series of meetings, proposing draft regulations and then a public comment period. Historically, the whole process takes at least a year.

The Federal Register notice doesn’t say what specific changes the department is seeking to make aside from “redefining definitions of a qualifying employer.” The department also is planning to revise the regulations for Pay as You Earn and income-contingent repayment plans.

In early March, President Donald Trump directed the Education Department to change which employers or companies are eligible for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. Under the executive order, activities that would disqualify a nonprofit could include aiding or abetting violations of federal immigration laws or what the government considers illegal discrimination. Advocates and Democrats decried the order as “un-American” and argued that it would disrupt borrowers’ lives.

The department will hold an in-person hearing April 29 and a virtual hearing May 1. More information is available here.

“This process will focus on how the Department can rightsize Title IV regulations that have driven up the cost of college and hindered innovation,” said Acting Under Secretary James Bergeron in a news release. Bergeron is also leading the Office of Federal Student Aid. (Title IV of the Higher Education Act authorizes federal financial aid programs.)

He added that “not only will this rulemaking serve as an opportunity to identify and cut unnecessary red tape, but it will allow key stakeholders to offer suggestions to streamline and improve federal student aid programs.”

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April 4, 2025
UVM, JMU, N.C. State, UW-Milwaukee and More

Shantay Bolton, executive vice president of administration and finance and chief business officer at Georgia Tech, has been named president of Columbia College Chicago, effective July 1.

Laura Crawley, vice president of mission, engagement and innovation at Lenoir-Rhyne University in North Carolina, will become president of Bethany College in Kansas, effective May 1.

Farouk Dey, vice provost for integrative learning and life design at Johns Hopkins University, has been appointed president of Palo Alto University, effective July 1.

William Downs, president of Gardner-Webb University in North Carolina, has been named president of Campbell University, also in North Carolina, beginning July 1.

Charles Edmonds, currently executive vice president of Lycoming College, will become president of the Pennsylvania-based institution on July 1.

Louise Fincher, currently the interim president of Emory & Henry University in Virginia, has been named president of the institution.

Thomas Gibson, chancellor of the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point, has been named the next chancellor of the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, beginning on or around July 1.

Michael Hill, president of Chautauqua Institution in New York, has been appointed president of Virginia’s Randolph-Macon College, effective Aug. 1.

Kevin Howell, chief external affairs officer at University of North Carolina Health and the UNC School of Medicine, has been named chancellor of North Carolina State University, effective May 5.

Mark Johnson, director of the doctor of ministry program at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, has been elected president of Louisiana Christian University.

Michael Kotlikoff, interim president of Cornell University since last July, has been named the institution’s president, effective immediately.

Dean Pribbenow, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty at Elmhurst University in Illinois, has been appointed president of Millikin University, also in Illinois, effective July 1.

Sean Ryan, senior vice president of administration, strategic initiatives and trustee affairs at Bellarmine University in Kentucky, will become president of Anna Maria College in Massachusetts, effective July 1.

James Schmidt, chancellor of the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire, has been named president of James Madison University in Virginia, effective July 1.

Claire Shipman, co-chair of the Columbia University Board of Trustees, has been named acting president of the university, effective immediately.

Marlene Tromp, president of Boise State University in Idaho, will become president of the University of Vermont, effective this summer.

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April 4, 2025
Trump Administration to Block Brown’s Federal Grants

The Trump administration plans to block $510 million in federal contracts and grants for Brown University in retaliation for the university’s alleged failure to address antisemitism on campus, The New York Times reported.

That makes Brown the fifth university to face such consequences, after Columbia, Penn, Harvard and Princeton.

The Daily Caller first reported the news, writing that “an administration official” said Brown’s grants “would be paused” while the government conducts a review of the university’s response to claims of antisemitism.

Brown provost Frank Doyle sent an email to campus leaders Thursday, acknowledging “troubling rumors emerging about federal action on Brown research grants,” but noting that they had received “no information to substantiate any of these rumors,” the Times reported.

Brown was among the 60 higher ed institutions to receive a letter last month from the Office for Civil Rights warning of “potential enforcement actions” if they failed to comply with federal antidiscrimination law.

After Columbia became the first institution to have its grants frozen, Brown president Christina Paxson issued a statement reiterating the university’s commitment to upholding both federal law and academic freedom. She noted that if Brown were prevented from performing “essential academic and operational functions, we would be compelled to vigorously exercise our legal rights to defend these freedoms, and true to our values, we would do so with integrity and respect.”

On Thursday night, leaders of the Brown Corporation and of Brown’s Jewish community, released a statement praising Brown’s commitment to Jewish students.

“Brown University is home to a vibrant Jewish community that continues to flourish with the steadfast support of the administration,” it read. “Amidst broader concerns about antisemitism on college campuses, Brown stands out as an inclusive environment where Jewish life is deeply integrated into campus culture.”

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April 4, 2025