Tag: Education

  • Teacher stress levels have surpassed pandemic-era highs

    Teacher stress levels have surpassed pandemic-era highs

    Key points:

    America’s K-12 educators are more stressed than ever, with many considering leaving the profession altogether, according to new survey data from Prodigy Education.

    The Teacher Stress Survey, which polled more than 800 K-12 educators across the U.S., found that nearly half of teachers (45 percent) view the 2024-25 school year as the most stressful of their careers. The surveyed educators were also three times more likely to say that the 2024-25 school year has been the hardest compared to 2020, when they had to teach during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Student behavior challenges (58 percent), low compensation (44 percent), and administrative demands (28 percent) are driving teacher burnout and turnover at alarming rates. Public school teachers were more likely to report stress from unrealistic workloads, large class sizes, school safety concerns, and student behavior issues than their private school counterparts.

    “The fact that stress levels for so many teachers have exceeded those of the pandemic era should be a wake-up call,” said Dr. Josh Prieur, director of education enablement at Prodigy Education and former assistant principal in the U.S. public school system. “Teachers need tangible, meaningful, and sustained support … every week of the year.”

    Additional key findings include:

    • The vast majority of teachers (95 percent) are experiencing some level of stress, with more than two-thirds (68 percent) reporting moderate to very high stress. K-5 teachers were the most likely to feel extremely/very stressed (33 percent). Sixty-three percent of teachers report that their current stress levels are higher than when they first started teaching. 
    • Nearly one in 10 teachers surveyed (9 percent) are planning to leave the profession this year, while nearly one in four (23 percent) are actively thinking about it. One-third of teachers do not expect to be teaching three years from now, likely because nearly half (48 percent) of teachers don’t feel appreciated for the work that they do.
    • Teachers are finding ways to prioritize their well-being, but time limits and job pressures often get in the way. Seventy-eight percent of teachers say they actively make time for self-care, but nearly half (43 percent) feel guilty for spending time on self-care and 78 percent have skipped self-care due to work demands. Implementing school-provided self-care perks and mandatory self-care breaks would appeal to teachers, with 85 percent and 76 percent taking advantage of each benefit, respectively.
    • Top solutions that would reduce teachers’ stress include a higher salary (59 percent), a four-day school week (33 percent), stronger classroom discipline policies (32 percent), and smaller class sizes (25 percent). Public school teachers were more likely to prefer a shorter week, while private school educators opted for higher pay. 

    “Teacher Appreciation Week should serve as the starting point for building systems that show we value teachers’ time, talent, and well-being,” said Dr. Prieur. “Districts can do this by investing in tools that reduce the burden on teachers, prioritizing time for self-care and implementing policies that reinforce teachers’ value as an ongoing commitment to bettering the profession.”

    This press release originally appeared online.

    Laura Ascione
    Latest posts by Laura Ascione (see all)

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  • Trump administration appeals pause on Education Department cuts to SCOTUS

    Trump administration appeals pause on Education Department cuts to SCOTUS

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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.

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  • A Chance for Constructive Engagement (opinion)

    A Chance for Constructive Engagement (opinion)

    Earlier this spring, I was one of hundreds of college, university and scholarly society leaders to sign “A Call for Constructive Engagement” published by the American Association of Colleges and Universities. The statement speaks out against “the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education.” It calls for the freedom to determine, on academic grounds, whom to admit and what is taught, how and by whom, while engaging in constructive reform and openness to legitimate government oversight.

    Deciding whether to make such a public statement merits careful consideration. This is because by making the statement, a higher education leader will likely not be reflecting the viewpoints of all of their institution’s constituents.

    An email from an alum from the 1970s reminded me of this. The alum chastised me for signing the statement, for overreaching and speaking for some members of our university community such as him, and for banding together with other higher learning institutions that have become “liberal cesspools of propaganda and misinformation … [that] openly permit anti-Israeli protests led by anti-Semitic educators … [and] become another left-wing terrorist organization supporting the likes of Hamas.”

    The alum asked me to remove my signature from the AAC&U statement on account of the concerns that he had raised. One higher education leader has so far done so, likely because of receiving input such as that provided by our alum.

    I opted to reply to our alum, thereby putting to practice the constructive engagement preached by the AAC&U statement. My reply asked the alum how long it had been since he had last visited campus and whether he knew that, thanks to the philanthropic generosity of some fellow graduates, we renovated our campus’s Hillel House last summer.

    I asked the alum whether he had heard of the Common Ground program Alfred instituted in 2018 through the philanthropic support of our trustees. It is a required course for all of our new undergraduate students and consists of small-group dialogue facilitated by a faculty or staff member with two key objectives: 1) to better appreciate the different backgrounds (including geographies, ethnicities and religions), aspirations and interests that our new students bring to Alfred (artists think differently than engineers, liberal arts students think differently than business students), and 2) to arrive at some shared values that our new students will commit to living by as citizens of the Alfred community—such as commitment to constructive dialogue.

    By fostering constructive engagement, our Common Ground program likely helped prevent the strife that occurred on many other college campuses in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel and the ensuing war in the Middle East. When members of campus communities have built meaningful relationships with one another, they are less likely to retreat to their ideological corners when a potential conflict arises. Instead, they talk as friends.

    I closed my email by asking the alum whether he had any impactful mentors as a student.

    To my pleasant surprise, the alum replied by recounting a particularly impactful faculty mentor in the field of astronomy who had given him many applied learning opportunities and inspired a lifelong interest in stargazing, which he continues to do to this day from his home. He also noted how well his college education had positioned him for the professional success that he has enjoyed.

    We have since spoken by phone. While there are certain matters upon which we still disagree, we have found some common ground.

    We agree that institutions of higher learning are potent engines for promoting the success of graduates as well as the prosperity of our nation and the health and well-being of our broader population. There are nearly 4,000 institutions of higher learning across our nation—spanning public and private and including community colleges, technical training institutions, arts schools, religious institutions and HBCUs. This constellation, in which anyone can find a place, provides powerful opportunities for professional and personal advancement, social mobility, entrepreneurial innovation, access to health care, national defense, social services and cultural offerings.

    We agree that the core focus of institutions of higher learning should be on providing an education of enduring value through fostering knowledge and curiosity.

    We also agree that universities, like individuals and nations, do not always uniformly arc toward wisdom. They can stumble and thus benefit from constructive reform. Our field of higher education can and should be better listeners to our public, more concerned about the cost of college and more focused on student success and less on prestige.

    Notwithstanding the stumbles, however, institutions of higher learning, as noted by Israeli historian Yuval Hariri in his recent book Nexus, have some powerful self-correcting mechanisms such as peer review. Authoritarian regimes, by contrast, lack such self-correcting mechanisms when they suppress inquiry and criticism.

    Consider Katalin Karikó, who emigrated from her native Hungary to the United States with $1,200 cash sewn into her daughter’s teddy bear to do research on mRNA. While at the University of Pennsylvania, her hypothesis regarding the potency of mRNA research was derided by most fellow researchers around the globe. She was denied a tenure-track position and demoted. Yet, the research that she kept pursuing was pivotal to the development of COVID vaccines and earned her a Nobel Prize in 2023.

    And while our alum and I still disagree on whether my signature should be affixed to the AAC&U statement, we have ended up agreeing both on the value of constructive engagement and the criticality of promoting it as a central value in higher education.

    Mark Zupan is president of Alfred University.

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  • Housing Program Increases Student Success in Calif.

    Housing Program Increases Student Success in Calif.

    An estimated 20 percent of college students experience housing insecurity and 14 percent experience homelessness, according to fall 2024 data from Trellis Strategies. Yet many colleges are ill-equipped to address student housing concerns, particularly institutions with nonresidential campuses or those that serve adult learners.

    The state of California created an initiative in 2020 to provide housing and short-term support to students who were experiencing housing insecurity while enrolled at one of the three public systems—the California State Universities, California Community Colleges or the University of California.

    A recently published analysis of the state’s College Focused Rapid Rehousing (CFRR) program identified promising practices and lessons learned from the pilot. The study—authored by the Center for Equitable Higher Education (CEHE) at California State University, Long Beach—found that students who participated were more likely to remain enrolled and graduate compared to their peers, and a majority had established stable housing one year later.

    The background: Passed in July 2019, Assembly Bill 74 allocated funding for college-focused rapid rehousing programs, which give students rental subsidies, moving assistance, wraparound supports, case management and emergency grants. The community college system received $9 million, CSU $6.5 million and UC institutions $3.5 million to invest in long- and short-term initiatives, depending on each system’s unique student needs.

    According to 2023 data included in the report, over half of CSU students and 65 percent of CCC’s who receive financial aid experience housing insecurity. One-quarter of CCC students and 11 percent of CSU students experienced homelessness during the 2022–23 academic year.

    The CEHE study evaluated the program over three years at eight CSU campuses and two community colleges. In total, 639 students participated in CFRR across the 10 institutions, and 3,949 received short-term assistance—often in the form of an emergency grant—from spring 2020 to spring 2024. Approximately 540 students fell into both categories, receiving short-term support before enrolling in CFRR.

    Some historically underserved populations were more likely to participate in CFRR: Black students and former foster youth were heavily overrepresented relative to the general population, and first-generation, transfer and returning students were also overrepresented to a smaller degree.

    Addressing housing insecurity: The program was successful in its goal of mitigating homelessness for enrolled students. After engaging with CFRR, participants experienced substantial housing stability, with an average of nine consecutive months of housing.

    In addition, a majority of students who left the program graduated (27 percent) or reached permanent housing (27 percent), while 15 percent failed to meet academic requirements, which is a common barrier to sustaining housing assistance.

    The greatest share of students (37 percent) were placed in stable housing in less than six months, though one-third took over 12 months to get housing from a community partner. The breakdown highlights the challenges in placing students in viable housing options, according to the report. However, two-thirds of surveyed students (n=181) said they believe they had been housed relatively quickly.

    One year after exiting the program, a majority of participants indicated that they were residing in an apartment or home that they directly leased or owned. Eighteen percent lived with a family member.

    Students credited the program with supporting their long-term success; 71 percent of survey respondents agreed or strongly agreed that their current housing situation was better because of the assistance they received.

    However, many still struggled with financial insecurity. Sixty-two percent said it was difficult to pay increased rent in the first year after exiting the program, and 25 percent underpaid or missed at least one rent payment during this period. Three in 10 said they had to move more than twice due to financial difficulties, and one-quarter of program graduates reported at least one episode of homelessness.

    Impacting student success: In addition to meeting students’ basic needs, the program had a demonstrated effect on persistence and attainment rates.

    Participants were more likely to remain enrolled or graduate (56 percent) compared to students receiving short-term housing assistance (47 percent). At CSU, CFRR students graduated within four years at higher rates than the broader CSU population (43 percent versus 35.5 percent), as well.

    Data also pointed to the impact housing crises can have on students’ academic performance, with housing-insecure students reporting their lowest GPA the semester they engaged in support interventions and the semester following.

    A graph showing the average GPA of CFRR participants compared to their peers who received short-term assistance from their institution.

    Twelve months after receiving assistance, CFRR students were significantly less likely to stop out of school compared to their peers who received just a short-term housing subsidy. Survey data showed students were more likely to engage in school activities, but a majority (70 percent) still held jobs to pay for college, working an average of 25 hours per week. Eighty percent of CFRR participants said they had difficulty balancing school and life responsibilities.

    Program participants were also more likely to be employed six months after entering housing (70 percent) versus three months before entering the program (56 percent).

    Housing insecurity can damage students’ mental health and in turn affect their persistence in higher education. At intake into CFRR, 76 percent of participants said they felt lonely, but that number dropped to 63 percent in follow-up surveys. Just under half of housing-insecure students experienced serious psychological distress at intake, while closer to one-third indicated distress at follow-up. These numbers remain elevated compared to the total student population at CSU, where 20 percent experienced serious psychological distress.

    The program also increased students’ emotional and mental resilience. Students rated their ability to handle personal problems higher after securing housing as well, from 33 percent to 52 percent during follow-up.

    If your student success program has a unique feature or twist, we’d like to know about it. Click here to submit.

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  • What America Needs Most From the Class of 2025

    What America Needs Most From the Class of 2025

    You, who made the dreams of your immigrant families come true by earning your college degrees, are what America needs right now.

    You, who yourselves are immigrants who came to this country with nothing but have earned a degree or certificate that could transport you out of poverty and into the middle class, are what America needs right now.

    You, who survived poverty, food insecurity and homelessness to make it here to your college graduation, are what America needs right now.

    You, who know firsthand what it is like to be discriminated against because of where you are from, how you talk, how you look and who you love, but yet, refuse to sit idly by while others suffer injustices, are what America needs right now.

    Even those of you who have no firsthand experience with discrimination but yet also refuse to sit idly by while others suffer injustices are what America needs right now.

    You, who served your time, turned your lives around, were released from jails and prisons, then ultimately inspired others in your communities by earning college degrees, are what America needs right now.

    You, who bravely served in our nation’s military, then came to college and are graduating today with the same enduring commitments to freedom—thank you for your service—you are what America needs right now.

    You, who are committed to building and protecting a just and equitable nation that none of us have ever seen, are what America needs right now.

    Eighteen states are yet to elect a woman governor—she could be you. The United States needs its first woman president—she could be you. Fortune 500 companies need more indisputably qualified CEOs and executives who reflect our nation’s diversity—that could be you. Higher education will soon need a new generation of professors and administrators to educate and ensure the success of future students—that could be you.

    Class of 2025, what our nation needs most at this time is you.

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  • What America Needs Most From the Class of 2025

    What America Needs Most From the Class of 2025

    You, who made the dreams of your immigrant families come true by earning your college degrees, are what America needs right now.

    You, who yourselves are immigrants who came to this country with nothing but have earned a degree or certificate that could transport you out of poverty and into the middle class, are what America needs right now.

    You, who survived poverty, food insecurity and homelessness to make it here to your college graduation, are what America needs right now.

    You, who know firsthand what it is like to be discriminated against because of where you are from, how you talk, how you look and who you love, but yet, refuse to sit idly by while others suffer injustices, are what America needs right now.

    Even those of you who have no firsthand experience with discrimination but yet also refuse to sit idly by while others suffer injustices are what America needs right now.

    You, who served your time, turned your lives around, were released from jails and prisons, then ultimately inspired others in your communities by earning college degrees, are what America needs right now.

    You, who bravely served in our nation’s military, then came to college and are graduating today with the same enduring commitments to freedom—thank you for your service—you are what America needs right now.

    You, who are committed to building and protecting a just and equitable nation that none of us have ever seen, are what America needs right now.

    Eighteen states are yet to elect a woman governor—she could be you. The United States needs its first woman president—she could be you. Fortune 500 companies need more indisputably qualified CEOs and executives who reflect our nation’s diversity—that could be you. Higher education will soon need a new generation of professors and administrators to educate and ensure the success of future students—that could be you.

    Class of 2025, what our nation needs most at this time is you.

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  • Senate Dems Grill Trump’s Pick to Lead Civil Rights Office

    Senate Dems Grill Trump’s Pick to Lead Civil Rights Office

    Kimberly Richey, a Florida education official, made her case Thursday about why she should lead the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, pledging “unwavering” support of the administration’s priorities such as protecting Jewish students.

    “Should I be confirmed as assistant secretary for civil rights, I will proudly be joining an administration that will not allow students to be intimidated, harassed, assaulted or excluded from their institutions,” she said in her opening remarks.

    But repeatedly throughout the hearing, Democratic senators interrogated her on how she plans to address a massive backlog in complaints—which one senator said has more than doubled since Trump took office, to 25,000—with a reduced staff.

    “This administration has fired more than half of the staff at OCR, and President Trump is now asking, in his budget, to slash that by $49 million next year, so explain to me how those firings and that funding cut will help reduce that backlog? I want to understand how you’re going to square that circle,” Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington, asked early on in the hearing.

    Richey mostly avoided answering the questions, arguing that she had not yet assumed the role of assistant secretary and, therefore, had no say in the recent changes to OCR.

    “As a nominee, I do not have access to information with regard to the decisions that are being made at the department,” Richey responded. “I’m not in communication with OCR leadership or the secretary. One of the reasons why this role is so important to me is because I am always going to advocate for OCR to have the resources it needs to do its job. I think that what it means is I’m going to have to be really strategic, if I’m confirmed, stepping into this role, helping come up with a plan where we can address these challenges.”

    Several others doubled down on Murray’s line of questioning, including Sen. Andy Kim, a New Jersey Democrat, who asked Richey if antisemitism was getting worse in America. When she said it was, he questioned how cutting OCR staff is conducive to fighting antisemitism on college campuses. She reiterated her answer to Murray’s question, saying, “I can’t explain or provide information on decisions I wasn’t involved in.”

    Richey was one of four people who testified Thursday before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. She and the nominee for deputy secretary of education, Penny Schwinn, fielded the bulk of the committee’s questions as lawmakers pressed for answers about the OCR’s operations and priorities, proposed budget cuts, and the president’s plans to dismantle the Education Department. The senators didn’t vote on whether to advance the nominations to the Senate floor; that step will likely occur at a later meeting.

    Richey is currently senior chancellor for the Florida Department of Education and has twice served in OCR before, including a brief stint as acting secretary of civil rights at the end of Trump’s first term and the beginning of Biden’s presidency. Her confirmation hearing comes months after the Trump administration slashed more than half of OCR’s staff, including shuttering seven of the 12 regional offices dedicated to investigating complaints. The office has also reportedly begun prioritizing opening cases regarding trans women athletes and antisemitism since Trump’s second term began, letting other cases pile up and go unaddressed, according to multiple news reports.

    In the confirmation hearing, Richey expressed strong support for those causes, stressing that she led OCR when it investigated one of the federal government’s earliest cases against a school for allowing a trans woman to play on a women’s sports team.

    “I’m certainly committed to vigorously enforcing it and continuing to pursue these cases,” she said.

    In response to a different question, though, she did say that OCR would investigate certain complaints of discrimination related to gender identity and sexual orientation—an answer that appeared to incense Republican senator Josh Hawley of Missouri.

    “I want to be crystal clear on this—I think it’s a very dangerous thing to start allowing this into Title IX, which, as you know, it is a landmark statute, it is vitally important, and it has been under attack for four long years,” he said, asking her to confirm that OCR will “go after” colleges and universities that allow trans women to play women’s sports.

    He also warned Richey that she should “rethink” her position that OCR can investigate discrimination based on gender identity.

    Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, a Democrat from Maryland, pressed Richey on whether she would continue OCR’s new system of prioritizing cases regarding antisemitism and trans athletes, asking if all forms of discrimination should be treated with equal importance.

    Richey told Alsobrooks she does believe “it’s important to vigorously enforce all of the federal laws that OCR is responsible for enforcing.” Later in the hearing, she noted that Education Secretary Linda McMahon is “prioritizing” removing trans women from women’s athletics, and she plans to do the same if confirmed.

    Schwinn, who was formerly Tennessee’s commissioner of education, received most of the panel’s questions about the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the education department. In response a question from Sen. Jim Banks, an Indiana Republican, about what steps would be required to dismantle the department, she stated that she “would certainly work, if confirmed, with the secretary and with Congress on any actions related to the role of the department” and that she believes in equipping states with legislation and funding that will help them improve their own educational systems.

    “A department or an agency in the federal government is not going to change the outcomes of students—the teacher in the classroom is going to teach the standards that are approved by that state. The parent is the parent of that child. What we need to do is ensure we’ve created a system that is going to drive outcomes,” she said. “That is not going to happen from the federal government, whether there is a Department of Education or not.”

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  • Purdue Cuts Off Student Paper Citing Institutional Neutrality

    Purdue Cuts Off Student Paper Citing Institutional Neutrality

    Purdue University has ended a long-standing partnership with its independent student newspaper, The Purdue Exponent, and will no longer distribute papers, give student journalists free parking passes or allow them to use the word “Purdue” for commercial purposes.

    The Purdue Student Publishing Foundation board (PSPF), the nonprofit group that oversees The Exponent—the largest collegiate newspaper in Indiana—said the changes came without warning.

    On May 30, PSPF received an email from Purdue’s Office of Legal Counsel notifying the group that their contract had expired more than a decade ago and the university would not participate in newspaper distribution or give the students exclusive access to newspaper racks on campus.

    In addition, the message said, the university will not enter into a new contract for facility use with the paper to remain consistent with the administration’s stated policy on institutional neutrality.

    According to a statement from the university, it is not consistent “with principles of freedom of expression, institutional neutrality and fairness to provide the services and accommodations described in the letter to one media organization but not others.”

    The Exponent is the only student newspaper, though Purdue also has two student news channels, FastTrack News and BoilerTV.

    Legal counsel also asked The Exponent to keep “Purdue” off the masthead and out of the paper’s URL because “The Foundation should not associate its own speech with the University.” PSPF says it has a trademark on “The Purdue Exponent” until 2029.

    PSPF and Purdue have held distribution agreements since 1975, in which Exponent staff would drop papers off at various locations across campus and staff would then place them on newspaper racks.

    In 2014, the Exponent delivered the university a new contract to renew the agreement for the next five years, according to paper staff. The contract was never signed, but the terms of the agreement continued until Monday, June 2.

    Now, The Exponent is permitted to distribute papers themselves and have nonexclusive access to newspaper stands on campus, according to the university; students said they don’t have early access to many of the buildings the way staff do.

    “Purdue’s moves are unacceptable and represent not only a distortion of trademark law but a betrayal of the university’s First Amendment obligations to uphold free expression,” Dominic Coletti, a student press program officer for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, told The Exponent. “Breaking long-standing practice to hinder student journalism is not a sign of institutional neutrality; it is a sign of institutional cowardice.”



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  • Trump Proposes $161M Cut to Tribal Colleges’ Funding

    Trump Proposes $161M Cut to Tribal Colleges’ Funding

    The Trump administration is asking Congress to cut funds for tribal colleges and universities by nearly 90 percent, according to the Department of the Interior’s proposed budget released Monday.

    Tribal college advocates told ProPublica, which first reported on the cuts, that tribal colleges could have to shutter if Congress approves the plan, leaving thousands of students without the support they need to complete a degree program. And reports from ProPublica show that it will only further devastate institutions that were already underfunded.

    “The numbers that are being proposed would close the tribal colleges,” Ahniwake Rose, president and CEO of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, told ProPublica. “They would not be able to sustain.”

    The budget request calls for about $860 million to operate Indian Education Programs, which includes two federally controlled tribal colleges—Haskell Indian Nations University and Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute. Of that $860 million, about $22 million would go toward postsecondary programs. That’s about a $161 million cut compared to fiscal year 2024.

    Tribal colleges argue that their funding is protected by treaties and contend that the institutions up for discussion are critical providers in some of the country’s poorest areas.

    “It doesn’t make sense for them to [approve the cuts[ when they’re relying on us to train the workforce,” Dawn Frank, president of Oglala Lakota College in South Dakota, told ProPublica. “We’re really relying on our senators and representatives to live up to their treaty and trust obligation.”

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  • Judge Restores AmeriCorps Funding in 24 States, D.C.

    Judge Restores AmeriCorps Funding in 24 States, D.C.

    A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to restore funding to AmeriCorps programs in 24 states and Washington, D.C., following a lawsuit that challenged the April cuts to the program, The Hill reported Thursday.

    The judge, Obama appointee Deborah Boardman, ruled that the states were likely to succeed in their argument that the agency’s funding could not legally be cut without a notice-and-comment period. The ruling did not reinstate any of the agency’s staff.

    AmeriCorps volunteers and grants support at least 100 college-access organizations across the U.S., many of which had to lay off their AmeriCorps members in the wake of the cuts.

    It’s the latest court order blocking the administration’s crusade to reduce the size of the federal government; recently, judges reversed layoffs at the Department of Education and ruled that a lawsuit challenging funding cuts at the National Institutes of Health could move forward.

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