Tag: feds

  • Democrats warn feds against selling student loans to private market

    Democrats warn feds against selling student loans to private market

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    Dive Brief:

    • Over 40 Democratic lawmakers have called on the Trump administration to abandon reported talks about the possibility of selling off a chunk of the federal government’s $1.6 million student loan portfolio to the private market.
    • In a Sunday letter to U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, the federal lawmakers warned transferring student debt ownership to the private sector could strip borrowers of legal protections and violate the law if the loans are sold at a loss to taxpayers.
    • “The federal government cannot simply eliminate its legal obligations to borrowers,” the members of Congress said. “Federal law requires that the protections guaranteed in the original terms of a borrower’s loan must be honored even if the Department of Education proceeds with a sale.”

    Dive Insight:

    The letter from Democrats — signed by U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Richard Blumenthal and Ron Wyden, among others — follows an October report from Politico about talks in the Trump administration that centered on a partial sale of the government’s student loans. 

    According to Politico, senior officials in the U.S. departments of Education and Treasury have recently discussed selling high-performing student loan debt to the private sector. 

    The administration has also broached the possibility with finance executives, among them potential buyers of the loans, and is considering bringing in consultants or banks to review the portfolio, the news outlet reported.

    In addition to calling for the Trump administration to cease any talks, the lawmakers requested detailed information on any potential plan and the names of those who have participated in any discussions. The Education and Treasury departments did not respond to requests for comment by publication time on Tuesday. 

    The Education Department’s Federal Student Aid office oversees the loan portfolio and contracts out servicing to private entities. Student loan receivables represent one of the largest assets on the nation’s balance sheet. 

    A 1998 law allows the government to sell student loan assets — so long as it is done at no cost to the government — which could be why no such sale has taken place to date. The Sunday letter said the first Trump administration mulled the possibility but never pursued it, pointing to Wall Street Journal reporting that the agency hired the consultancy McKinsey & Co. at the time to review the portfolio..

    The Democratic lawmakers and others have argued the no-cost provision means the government could not sell the loans for less than what it would collect if it kept them on the public balance sheet. 

    In 2024, FSA estimated the net value of the government’s student loan portfolio at about $1.1 trillion. However, a 2025 analysis from the Project on Predatory Student Lending argues this figure “is almost certainly wrong,” based on data and assumptions that “have proven wildly off-base.”

    That figure represents the government’s own valuation of the loan portfolio. In the case of a sale, the relevant figure would be the price a private sector buyer would be willing to pay. 

    The student lending project said the government has several advantages as a lender over private companies, including unlimited time to collect, the ability to withhold federal payments such as tax refunds to offset loan defaults, and immunity from legal liability for loan servicing failures. All of that means student loans are likely worth more to the government than to the private sector, according to PPSL. 

    Along with a potential loss to taxpayers, the Democratic lawmakers warned of the possible impact to student borrowers from transferring loan assets. 

    “By selling parts of the federal student loan portfolio, the Trump Administration may seek to unlawfully strip borrowers of their legally guaranteed protections,” they wrote. 

    The lawmakers pointed to protections such as income-driven repayment, public service loan forgiveness, disability and death discharges, and debt relief for those determined to have been defrauded by predatory colleges. 

    “Private lenders typically do not guarantee these kinds of borrower rights,” they wrote. “Profits would likely come at the expense of the borrower via fewer protections and less generous benefits. However, the federal government cannot simply eliminate its legal obligations to borrowers.”

    PPSL argued in its analysis that removing provisions for borrowers could make the loan portfolio more valuable to private buyers, but those loan provisions in contracts with the federal government represent property protected by the Fifth Amendment. 

    “Any law stripping repayment rights or other favorable terms from student loan contracts would potentially trigger an obligation to compensate student loan borrowers for the loss of those terms,” the organization said.

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  • Feds cannot withhold funding from UC system amid lawsuit, judge rules

    Feds cannot withhold funding from UC system amid lawsuit, judge rules

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    Dive Brief:

    • A federal judge on Friday issued a preliminary injunction barring the Trump administration from freezing the University of California system’s research funding as part of civil rights investigations. 
    • In a scathing ruling, U.S. District Judge Rita Lin found the administration’s actions unconstitutional, describing “a playbook of initiating civil rights investigations of preeminent universities to justify cutting off federal funding,” with the aim of “forcing them to change their ideological tune.”
    • While a lawsuit over the Trump administration’s actions is ongoing, Lin barred the federal government from using civil rights investigations to freeze UC grant money, condition its grants on any measure that would violate recipients’ speech rights, or seek fines and other money from the system.

    Dive Insight:

     In her ruling, Lin described a “three-stage playbook” that the Trump administration uses to target universities. First, an agency involved with the administration’s Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism announces civil rights investigations or planned enforcement actions. Then, the administration issues mass grants cancellations without following legally mandated administrative procedures, Lin wrote.

    In the third stage, Lin said, the U.S. Department of Justice demands payment of millions or billions of dollars in addition to other policy changes in return for restored funding. A DOJ spokesperson on Monday declined to comment on the lawsuit. 

    In the case of UC, the judge ruled that plaintiffs — a coalition of faculty groups and unions, including the American Association of University Professors — provided “overwhelming evidence” of the administration’s “concerted campaign to purge ‘woke,’ ‘left,’ and ‘socialist’ viewpoints from our country’s leading universities.”

    “It is undisputed that this precise playbook is now being executed at the University of California,” wrote Lin, citing public statements by Leo Terrell, senior counsel in the DOJ’s civil rights wing and the head of administration’s antisemitism task force. Terrell alleged that the UC system had been “hijacked by the left” and vowed to open investigations. 

    The Trump administration did just that. In August, it froze $584 million in research funding at the University of California, Los Angeles after concluding that the institution violated civil rights law. It primarily cited UCLA’s decision to allow a 2024 pro-Palestinian protest encampment to remain on campus for almost a week before calling in the police. 

    The administration has sought a $1.2 billion penalty from UCLA to release the funds and settle the allegations. “The costs associated with this demand, if left to stand, would have far-reaching consequences,” Chancellor Julio Frenk said in a public message in August. 

    Lin noted in her Friday ruling that the administration also sought settlement terms “that had nothing to do with antisemitism,” including policy changes to how UCLA handles student protests, an adoption of the administration’s views on gender, and a review of its diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

    The administration’s campaign resulted in a significant and ongoing chilling of faculty’s actions, both in and out of the classroom, Lin said.

    In addition to teaching and conducting research differently, members of the plaintiff groups have also changed how they engage in public discourse and limited their participation in protest, Lin said. Faculty have self-censored on topics such as structural racism and scrubbed their websites of references to DEI out of fear of reprisal. 

    “These are classic, predictable First Amendment harms, and exactly what Defendants publicly said that they intended,” Lin concluded.

    While acknowledging the importance of combating antisemitism, Lin said the government was “silent on what actions UCLA took to address” antisemitism issues on its campus between May of 2024, when pro-Palestinian protesters established an encampment, and July 2025, when the DOJ concluded UCLA had violated civil rights law by not doing enough to protect Jewish students from harassment.

    As part of a separate lawsuit, Lin in September ordered the National Institutes of Health and other agencies to restore suspended grants to UCLA. 

    UCLA and the UC system are just one of several prominent universities similarly targeted by the federal government. At least five institutions so far have signed deals with the Trump administration to resolve federal civil investigations. The agreements brokered by Columbia, Brown and Cornell universities require each to pay millions of dollars to the federal government, causes favored by the Trump administration or both.

    Harvard University, on the other hand, has fought back against the administration’s tactics. After repeated federal attacks, accompanied by unprecedented ultimatums, the university sued the administration and successfully had the government’s $2.2 billion funding freeze against it reversed. The Trump administration has previously stated its intent to appeal. 

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  • Feds launch site for employers to pay controversial H-1B fee, clarify exemptions

    Feds launch site for employers to pay controversial H-1B fee, clarify exemptions

    Dive Brief:

    • The U.S. Treasury Department launched an online payment website for employers to pay President Donald Trump’s $100,000 fee on new H-1B visa petitions, according to an update last week from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
    • USCIS said the fee applies to new H-1B petitions filed on or after Sept. 21 on behalf of beneficiaries who are outside the U.S. and do not have a valid H-1B visa, or whose petitions request consular notification, port of entry notification or pre-flight inspection. Payment must be made prior to filing a petition with USCIS, per the agency.
    • Separately, USCIS’ update clarified that the fee requirement does not apply to petitions requesting an amendment, change of status or extension of stay for noncitizens who are inside the U.S., if that request is granted by USCIS. If it is not granted, then the fee applies.

    Dive Insight:

    Trump’s proclamation announcing the H-1B fee left employers with plenty of unanswered questions. While Monday’s update provides some clarity, the policy’s future is still uncertain in part because business groups, employers, unions, lawmakers and other stakeholders oppose it.

    At least two lawsuits have been filed seeking to enjoin the fee proclamation — one by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C., and another by a group of plaintiffs in California. Both similarly alleged that the H-1B fee violates the constitutional separation of powers as well as the Administrative Procedure Act. The complaints also warned of negative effects on U.S. employers that depend on the H-1B program to attract skilled foreign workers.

    In a letter to Trump and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, a bipartisan group of congressional lawmakers agreed to the need for reform of the H-1B program while expressing concerns about the potential effects of the fee on U.S. employers’ ability to compete with their global counterparts for talent.

    “The recently announced H-1B visa changes will undermine the efforts of the very catalysts of our innovation economy — startups and small technology firms — that cannot absorb costs at the same level as larger firms,” the lawmakers wrote.

    Trump and the White House have said the fee is necessary to combat “systemic abuse” of the H-1B program by employers that seek to artificially suppress wages at the cost of reduced job opportunities for U.S. citizens. In addition to the fee imposed on new visa petitions, the administration issued a proposed rule to change its selection process for H-1B visas to be weighted in favor of higher-paying offers.

    USCIS’ guidance noted that the Secretary of Homeland Security may grant other exceptions to the H-1B fee in “extraordinarily rare” circumstances where:

    • A beneficiary’s presence is in the national interest.
    • No American worker is available to fill the role.
    • The beneficiary does not pose a threat to U.S. security or welfare.
    • Requiring payment from the employer would significantly undermine U.S. interests.

    The agency provided an email address to which employers could send requests for fee exemption along with supporting evidence.

    Employers planning to file for new H-1B visas should plan to pay the fee unless litigation results in some kind of change, Akshat Divatia, attorney at law firm Harris Sliwoski, wrote in an article Tuesday. Divatia noted that some of the criteria for exemptions outlined by USCIS may conflict with congressional design of the H-1B program, and that employers “should watch closely how the courts respond” to such arguments.

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  • 70% of Americans say feds shouldn’t control admissions, curriculum

    70% of Americans say feds shouldn’t control admissions, curriculum

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    Dive Brief: 

    • Most polled Americans, 70%, disagreed that the federal government should control “admissions, faculty hiring, and curriculum at U.S. colleges and universities to ensure they do not teach inappropriate material,” according to a survey released Wednesday by the Public Religion Research Institute. 
    • The majority of Americans across political parties — 84% of Democrats, 75% of independents and 58% of Republicans — disagreed with federal control over these elements of college operations. 
    • The poll’s results come as the Trump administration seeks to exert control over college workings, including in its recent offer of priority for federal research funding in exchange for making sweeping policy changes aligned with the government’s priorities. 

    Dive Insight: 

    The poll from the nonpartisan PRRI isn’t the first survey to suggest that large swaths of Americans disagree with the Trump administration’s approach to higher education policy. 

    Slightly more than half of Americans, 56%, said they disapproved of how President Donald Trump was handling higher education-related issues, a May poll from The Associated Press and NORC at the University of Chicago found. 

    However, the AP-NORC poll found a stark political divide, with 90% of Democrats disapproving of Trump’s approach and 83% of Republicans approving of it. 

    More specifically, 73% of Democrats said at the time that they disapproved of the withholding of colleges’ federal funds for not complying with the government’s political goals. Conversely, 51% of Republicans approved of that approach. 

    Another poll — this one of Jewish Americans conducted by Ipsos and researchers from the University of Rochester and the University of California —  found in September that 58% said they disagree with the Trump administration pausing or canceling vast sums of federal research funding to Harvard University and the University of California, Los Angeles.

    In both cases, the Trump administration has accused the universities of not doing enough to address antisemitism on campus and demanded sweeping policy changes. However, federal judges have largely blocked the government’s attempted suspension of their research funding. 

    In the Ipsos poll, 72% of Jewish Americans said they were concerned about antisemitism on college campuses. But the same share said they believed the Trump administration was “using antisemitism as an excuse to penalize and tax college campuses.” 

    The Trump administration has so far cut deals with four colleges: three Ivy League institutions and, most recently, the University of Virginia, the first public institution to strike such an agreement. 

    More deals could be coming down the pike. 

    Earlier this month, the Trump administration offered priority research funding to nine colleges if they signed a compact dictating certain policies impacting their tuition, admissions and academics. Those provisions spanned from adopting a five-year tuition freeze to potentially dissolving campus units that “purposefully punish” and “belittle” conservative ideas. 

    While most of the colleges rejected the compact, Trump appeared to open up the deal to any interested institution. Additionally, two of the initial nine colleges — the University of Texas at Austin and Vanderbilt University — haven’t yet said publicly if they will sign or reject the compact. 

    Vanderbilt Chancellor Daniel Diermeier said he would provide feedback on the compact, adding that he looked forward to “continuing the conversation,” according to The Vanderbilt Hustler. 

    Meanwhile, UT-Austin officials have been silent on the compact lately, though the chair of the UT System initially said it was “honored” its flagship received the proposal.

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  • Feds launch site for employers to pay controversial H-1B fee, clarify exemptions

    Feds launch site for employers to pay controversial H-1B fee, clarify exemptions

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    Dive Brief:

    • The U.S. Treasury Department launched an online payment website for employers to pay President Donald Trump’s $100,000 fee on new H-1B visa petitions, according to an update Monday from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
    • USCIS said the fee applies to new H-1B petitions filed on or after Sept. 21 on behalf of beneficiaries who are outside the U.S. and do not have a valid H-1B visa, or whose petitions request consular notification, port of entry notification or pre-flight inspection. Payment must be made prior to filing a petition with USCIS, per the agency.
    • Separately, USCIS’ update clarified that the fee requirement does not apply to petitions requesting an amendment, change of status or extension of stay for noncitizens who are inside the U.S., if that request is granted by USCIS. If it is not granted, then the fee applies.

    Dive Insight:

    Trump’s proclamation announcing the H-1B fee left employers with plenty of unanswered questions. While Monday’s update provides some clarity, the policy’s future is still uncertain in part because business groups, employers, unions, lawmakers and other stakeholders oppose it.

    At least two lawsuits have been filed seeking to enjoin the fee proclamation — one by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C., and another by a group of plaintiffs in California. Both similarly alleged that the H-1B fee violates the constitutional separation of powers as well as the Administrative Procedure Act. The complaints also warned of negative effects on U.S. employers that depend on the H-1B program to attract skilled foreign workers.

    In a letter to Trump and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, a bipartisan group of congressional lawmakers agreed to the need for reform of the H-1B program while expressing concerns about the potential effects of the fee on U.S. employers’ ability to compete with their global counterparts for talent.

    “The recently announced H-1B visa changes will undermine the efforts of the very catalysts of our innovation economy — startups and small technology firms — that cannot absorb costs at the same level as larger firms,” the lawmakers wrote.

    Trump and the White House have said the fee is necessary to combat “systemic abuse” of the H-1B program by employers that seek to artificially suppress wages at the cost of reduced job opportunities for U.S. citizens. In addition to the fee imposed on new visa petitions, the administration issued a proposed rule to change its selection process for H-1B visas to be weighted in favor of higher-paying offers.

    USCIS’ guidance noted that the Secretary of Homeland Security may grant other exceptions to the H-1B fee in “extraordinarily rare” circumstances where:

    • A beneficiary’s presence is in the national interest.
    • No American worker is available to fill the role.
    • The beneficiary does not pose a threat to U.S. security or welfare.
    • Requiring payment from the employer would significantly undermine U.S. interests.

    The agency provided an email address to which employers could send requests for fee exemption along with supporting evidence.

    Employers planning to file for new H-1B visas should plan to pay the fee unless litigation results in some kind of change, Akshat Divatia, attorney at law firm Harris Sliwoski, wrote in an article Tuesday. Divatia noted that some of the criteria for exemptions outlined by USCIS may conflict with congressional design of the H-1B program, and that employers “should watch closely how the courts respond” to such arguments.

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  • Feds Press CPS to End Black Student Initiative, Transgender Student Guidelines – The 74

    Feds Press CPS to End Black Student Initiative, Transgender Student Guidelines – The 74


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    The Trump administration says it will withhold some federal funding from Chicago Public Schools over an initiative to improve outcomes for Black students and guidelines allowing transgender students to play sports and use facilities based on the gender with which they identify.

    Craig Trainor, the acting assistant secretary of civil rights in the U.S. Department of Education, wrote the district Tuesday saying his office has found CPS violated anti-discrimination laws and will lose grant dollars through the Magnet School Assistance Program. The district, with a budget of roughly $10.2 billion, has a five-year, $15 million Magnet Schools Assistance Program grant it received last year.

    The feds are demanding that the district abolish the Black Student Success Plan it unveiled in February and issue a statement saying it will require students to compete in sports or use locker rooms and bathroom facilities based on their biological sex at birth, among other demands.

    However, Illinois law conflicts on both fronts, putting CPS in a difficult position. The state issued guidance in March that outlines compliance with the Illinois Human Rights Law, including that schools must allow transgender students access to facilities that correspond to their gender identity. Separately, an Illinois law passed in 2024 requires the Chicago school board to have a Black Student Achievement Committee and plan for serving Black students.

    Chicago Public Schools said Wednesday in an emailed statement that it “does not comment on ongoing investigations.” Previously, its leaders have said that the Black Students Success Plan is a priority to address longstanding academic and discipline disparities that Black students face. They have vowed to forge ahead with the five-year plan in defiance of the Trump administration’s crackdown on race-based initiatives.

    Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said earlier this year that he would take the Trump administration to court if it takes federal funding away from CPS because of the district’s diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. His office also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    In response to a complaint from a Virginia-based conservative nonprofit earlier this year, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation into the Black Student Success Plan, which sets goals to double the number of male Black teachers, reduce Black student suspensions, and teach Black history in more classrooms. Trainor said in his department’s interpretation, the initiative runs afoul of a U.S. Supreme Court decision last year banning the consideration of race in college admissions by offering added support to Black students and teachers exclusively.

    “This is textbook racial discrimination, and no justification proffered by CPS can overcome the patent illegality of its racially exclusionary plan,” he wrote.

    The OCR also launched an investigation in March of CPS, the Illinois State Board of Education, and suburban Deerfield Public School District 109 to look into their policies on transgender students using facilities and participating in school sports. Trainor said Chicago’s Guidelines Regarding the Support of Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Students violate Title IX, the federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education.

    District officials told Chalkbeat recently that the members of a new school board Black Student Achievement Committee tasked with overseeing the plan’s rollout will be unveiled later this month.

    Stacy Davis Gates, the president of the Chicago Teachers Union, issued a statement decrying the federal move to withhold funds from CPS and saying the district will stay the course.

    “We will not back down,” she said in the statement. “We will not apologize. Our duty is to our students, and no amount of political bullying will shake our commitment to them.”

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


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  • UC Will “Dialogue” With Feds Over Civil Rights Investigation

    UC Will “Dialogue” With Feds Over Civil Rights Investigation

    The UC system says it will “engage in dialogue with the federal administration” over grant cuts.

    Juliana Yamada/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

    The University of California system announced Wednesday that it would negotiate with the federal government. The response comes a day after the Department of Justice’s deadline for the institution to express its interest in finding a “voluntary resolution agreement” to the agency’s investigation into antisemitism on the University of California, Los Angeles, campus. 

    On the line is—according to a UC estimate—$584 million in funding that at least three different federal agencies announced they were suspending in the week between the DOJ’s July 29 letter to system officials and its Aug. 5 deadline for them to respond.

    If the UC system comes to a resolution with the Trump administration, UCLA would become the first public university to openly make a deal with the federal government to restore grant funding. In the past month, Columbia and Brown Universities have agreed to collectively pay hundreds of millions of dollars to get their funding back.

    In the two-paragraph statement, UC system president James B. Milliken said, “Our immediate goal is to see the $584 million in suspended and at-risk federal funding restored to the university as soon as possible,” but he argued that the “cuts do nothing to address antisemitism.”

    “The extensive work that UCLA and the entire University of California have taken to combat antisemitism has apparently been ignored,” he said. “The announced cuts would be a death knell for innovative work that saves lives, grows our economy, and fortifies our national security. It is in our country’s best interest that funding be restored.”

    The DOJ’s July 29 letter to the system said its months-long investigations, which remain ongoing, have so far found that UCLA violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in its response to a protest encampment on its campus in the spring of 2024.

    In a press release about the letter, Attorney General Pam Bondi said, “DOJ will force UCLA to pay a heavy price for putting Jewish Americans at risk and continue our ongoing investigations into other campuses in the UC system.” The agency said in the letter that it is prepared to sue by Sept. 2 “unless there is reasonable certainty that we can reach an agreement.”

    But the Trump administration still hasn’t made clear what exactly it wants UCLA to do. Unlike with Columbia and Harvard, the federal government hasn’t listed its overarching demands. And the administration doesn’t appear to only be interested in addressing last year’s encampment at UCLA.

    In their own letters to UCLA last week, the National Science Foundation and the Energy Department announced funding suspensions, citing UCLA’s failure “to promote a research environment free of antisemitism and bias” and saying it “endangers women by allowing men in women’s sports and private women-only spaces.” Both agencies also accused UCLA of considering race in admissions.

    The Health and Human Services agency, which includes the National Institutes of Health, didn’t provide Inside Higher Ed with NIH’s grant suspension letter, and an HHS spokesperson declined to comment Wednesday. A DOJ spokesperson also declined to comment, and the White House didn’t respond to a request for comment. UC system spokespeople didn’t provide interviews or answer written questions.

    UCLA chancellor Julio Frenk said in a separate statement that the institution is doing everything it can “to protect the interests of faculty, students and staff—and to defend our values and principles.”

    “We will continue to hold town halls, convene office hours and share information with you, particularly those who are in the most directly affected areas,” Frenk told his employees. “This includes departments that rely on funding from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and Department of Energy.”

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  • ‘Make Sure They Speak English’ is Fed’s Only Responsibility to U.S. Kids – The 74

    ‘Make Sure They Speak English’ is Fed’s Only Responsibility to U.S. Kids – The 74

    News


    By

    Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, President Donald Trump said ‘little tiny bit of supervision’ is all that’s needed for education.



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  • ‘Strong evidence’ Harvard doesn’t meet accreditation standards, feds say

    ‘Strong evidence’ Harvard doesn’t meet accreditation standards, feds say

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    Dive Brief:

    • Two federal agencies on Wednesday notified Harvard University’s accreditor of “strong evidence to suggest” the Ivy League institution no longer meets its accreditation standards.
    • In a letter to the New England Commission of Higher Education, the U.S. departments of Education and Health and Human Services cited recent HHS findings alleging that Harvard is in “violent violation” of federal antidiscrimination law and has been “deliberately indifferent” to the harassment of Jewish and Israeli students on its campus.
    • The announcement comes the week after Columbia University got word from its accreditor that its approval “may be in jeopardy” following similar findings by HHS against the New York institution.

    Dive Insight:

    A wide-ranging April executive order from President Donald Trump directed U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to “promptly” provide accreditation agencies with any findings of noncompliance with Title VI, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin in federally funded programs.

    On Wednesday, McMahon did so for Harvard’s accreditor, NECHE.

    “By allowing antisemitic harassment and discrimination to persist unchecked on its campus, Harvard University has failed in its obligation to students, educators, and American taxpayers,” she said in a statement. 

    The Education Department expects NECHE to “enforce its policies and practices” and keep the agency “fully informed of its efforts to ensure that Harvard is in compliance with federal law and accreditor standards,” McMahon added.

    Without accreditation, Harvard would lose eligibility to accept federal financial aid — a crucial revenue source for all colleges, even the wealthiest ones.

    After HHS accused the university of violating Title VI last week, NECHE released a FAQ addressing its next steps.

    The commission made clear that the federal government cannot direct it to revoke a college’s accreditation. Likewise, a college does not automatically lose its accreditation if it is put under investigation, the FAQ said.

    NECHE gives institutions “up to four years to come into compliance when found by the Commission to be out of compliance, which can be extended for good cause,” it said, adding that institutions remain accredited during that time.

    Under NECHE policies, the commission will conduct an independent review of the allegations against Harvard.

    Meanwhile, HHS’ findings heavily cited an April report from Harvard on antisemitism and anti-Israeli bias on its campus. The internal report found that Jewish, Israeli and Zionist students and employees at the university felt shunned or harassed at times during the 2023-24 academic year.

    Since the report published in April, the Trump administration has repeatedly used it in attempts to cut off Harvard from enrolling international students and terminate more of its federal funding.

    Harvard also released a second report in tandem that addressed anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian bias on campus, finding that Harvard students and employees in these demographics also said they experienced harassment and discrimination during the same time frame.

    However, the Trump administration has not highlighted the findings from the second report in its news releases about Harvard’s alleged failure to protect students from harassment. And the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights has thus far stayed silent on issues of Islamophobia under Title VI.

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  • Feds Target Harvard’s Accreditation, Foreign Student Records

    Feds Target Harvard’s Accreditation, Foreign Student Records

    Harvard president Alan Garber at commencement.

    Libby O’Neill/Getty Images

    In the latest volley in the Trump administration’s war with Harvard University, federal agencies told Harvard’s accreditor the university is violating antidiscrimination laws, while Immigration and Customs Enforcement will subpoena Harvard’s “records, communications, and other documents relevant to the enforcement of immigration laws since January 1, 2020.”

    The Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security announced these moves Wednesday in news releases replete with condemnations from cabinet officials. The pressure comes as Harvard still refuses to bow to all of the Trump administration’s demands from April, which include banning admission of international students “hostile to the American values and institutions inscribed in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence, including students supportive of terrorism or anti-Semitism.” In May, DHS tried to stop Harvard from enrolling international students by stripping it of its Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, but a judge has blocked that move.

    Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a Wednesday statement, “By allowing antisemitic harassment and discrimination to persist unchecked on its campus, Harvard University has failed in its obligation to students, educators, and American taxpayers. The Department of Education expects the New England Commission of Higher Education to enforce its policies and practices.” (Only the accreditor can find a college in violation of its policies.)

    Trump officials said last week that Harvard is violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on shared ancestry, including antisemitism. They notified that accrediting agency of the HHS Office for Civil Rights’ finding that Harvard is displaying “deliberate indifference” to discrimination against Jewish and Israeli students.

    HHS’s Notice of Violation said multiple sources “present a grim reality of on-campus discrimination that is pervasive, persistent, and effectively unpunished.” Wednesday’s release from HHS said the investigation grew from a review of Harvard Medical School “based on reports of antisemitic incidents during its 2024 commencement ceremony,” into a review of the whole institution from Oct. 7, 2023, through the present.

    HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that “when an institution—no matter how prestigious—abandons its mission and fails to protect its students, it forfeits the legitimacy that accreditation is designed to uphold. HHS and the Department of Education will actively hold Harvard accountable through sustained oversight until it restores public trust and ensures a campus free of discrimination.”

    The Trump administration also notified Columbia University’s accreditor after it concluded Columbia committed a similar violation of federal civil rights law. The accreditor, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, then told Columbia that its accreditation could be in jeopardy.

    DHS’s subpoena announcement is the latest move in its targeting of Harvard over its international students, who comprise more than a quarter of its enrollment.

    DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a release, “We tried to do things the easy way with Harvard. Now, through their refusal to cooperate, we have to do things the hard way. Harvard, like other universities, has allowed foreign students to abuse their visa privileges and advocate for violence and terrorism on campus.”

    DHS didn’t provide Inside Higher Ed information on what specific records ICE is subpoenaing. It said in its release that “this comes after the university repeatedly refused past non-coercive requests to hand over the required information for its Student Visitor and Exchange Program [sic] certification.”

    The release said DHS Secretary Kristi Noem “demanded Harvard provide information about the criminality and misconduct of foreign students on its campus” back in April. The release further said that other universities “should take note of Harvard’s actions, and the repercussions, when considering whether or not to comply with similar requests.”

    Harvard pushed back in statements of its own Wednesday. It called the DHS subpoenas “unwarranted” but said it “will continue to cooperate with lawful requests and obligations.”

    “The administration’s ongoing retaliatory actions come as Harvard continues to defend itself and its students, faculty, and staff against harmful government overreach aimed at dictating whom private universities can admit and hire, and what they can teach,” one Harvard statement said. “Harvard remains unwavering in its efforts to protect its community and its core principles against unfounded retribution by the federal government.”

    If Harvard were to lose its accreditation, it would be cut off from federal student aid. In another statement, Harvard officials say they are complying with the New England Commission of Higher Education’s standards “maintaining its accreditation uninterrupted since its initial review in 1929.”

    Neither the Trump administration nor Larry Schall, president of NECHE, provided the letter the administration wrote to the commission. Schall told Inside Higher Ed the commission will request a response from Harvard within 30 days and that, plus the results of the federal investigation, will be presented to the commission at its next regularly scheduled meeting, currently set for September.

    “We have processes we follow,” Schall said. “We follow them whether it’s Harvard or some other institution … Our processes are consistent and actually directed by federal regulation.”

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