Tag: Launches

  • Education Department launches 18 Title IX transgender athlete investigations

    Education Department launches 18 Title IX transgender athlete investigations

    This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.

    The U.S. Department of Education announced a string of Title IX investigations Wednesday into over a dozen colleges and state and local school systems with policies that allow transgender students to play on sports teams aligning with their gender identity. 

    The 18 investigations come just a day after the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that could decide the future of transgender student athlete participation on sports teams. 

    “These policies jeopardize both the safety and the equal opportunities of women in educational programs and activities,” the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights said in a Wednesday announcement. 

    Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey said in a statement that her office is “aggressively pursuing” complaints about alleged discrimination in women’s sports, which it says is a result of transgender student participation on women’s and girls’ sports teams. 

    “We will leave no stone unturned in these investigations to uphold women’s right to equal access in education programs,” Richey said. 

    The investigations were launched into large and small public education systems and colleges, including the New York City Department of Education, Washington’s Tacoma Public Schools, and the Hawaii State Department of Education. 

    A handful of investigations were also launched into districts in California and Maine — states that have already been the target of Education Department investigations that resulted in U.S. Department of Justice referrals and threats to federal funding loss. 

    The earliest of those state investigations, which was aimed at Maine’s transgender athlete inclusion policies, put over $860 million of the state’s federal education funding on the line. 

    The Justice Department sued Maine following a Title IX investigation that said the state had discriminated against cisgender women and girls. However, as of last week, there have been no recent major developments in that case despite the lawsuit being announced last April, according to a Maine state attorney general office spokesperson. 

    On Tuesday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in West Virginia v. B.P.J and Little v. Hecox, in which justices were asked to weigh the constitutionality of state bans limiting transgender athlete participation on sports teams aligning with their gender identities and whether such bans violate Title IX. 

    While the high court’s conservative majority seemed inclined to uphold state bans, justices on both sides of the ideological spectrum questioned what their limits should be, considering the role of student age, hormone therapy and puberty blockers. 

    “I’ve been wondering what’s straightforward after all this discussion,” said Justice Neil Gorsuch in court on Tuesday. 

    The outcome of the cases could change the course of transgender students’ rights in schools, school district policies allowing or barring their participation on sports teams under Title IX, and the Education Department’s enforcement of the sex discrimination statute.

    The new investigations also come as Office for Civil Rights employees have been indefinitely reinstated to their positions after the department’s rescission of their layoff notices. The employees were laid off as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to downsize the federal government and to shutter the Education Department. 

    The civil rights employees were put on administrative leave but were in limbo as legal challenges to the layoffs worked their way through the courts and resulted in temporary blocks. However, the Education Department abandoned its efforts last month to push some of the layoffs through, which resulted in the employees’ indefinite reinstatement as of December.

    The full list of new investigations includes:

    • Jurupa School District (Calif.)
    • Placentia-Yorba School District (Calif.)
    • Santa Monica College (Calif.)
    • Santa Rosa Junior College (Calif.)
    • Waterbury Public Schools (Conn.)
    • Hawaii State Department of Education (Hawaii)
    • Regional School Unit 19 (Maine)
    • Regional School Unit 57 (Maine)
    • Foxborough Public Schools (Mass.)
    • University of Nevada, Reno (Nev.)
    • Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District (N.Y.)
    • New York City Department of Education (N.Y.)
    • Great Valley School District (Pa.)
    • Champlain Valley School District (Vt.)
    • Cheney Public Schools (Wash.)
    • Sultan School District No. 311 (Wash.)
    • Tacoma Public Schools (Wash.)
    • Vancouver Public Schools (Wash.)

    Source link

  • Canada launches CAD$1.7bn investment to recruit 1,000 global researchers

    Canada launches CAD$1.7bn investment to recruit 1,000 global researchers

    The Global Impact+ Research Talent Initiative will fund new research chairs, early-career posts, and infrastructure upgrades across universities to draw in leading academics from overseas and Canadian researchers currently working abroad. 

    “[The] investment is about securing Canada’s place at the forefront of discovery and innovation and leveraging our strength in science to support our future well-being and prosperity for generations to come,” said Canadian minister of industry Melanie Joly, announcing the program.  

    Through recruiting top talent, the program aims to “deliver direct economic, societal and health benefits for Canadians,” she stated.  

    The U15 group of Canada’s leading research-intensive universities welcomed the details of the investment, which was initially put forward in the government’s 2026-28 Immigration Levels Plan last month.  

    Robert Asselin, U15’s CEO, described the initiative as a “call to action” to make Canada a world-leading hub for research and innovation. 

    “This is a significant step which recognises that Canada’s security and economic success depend on supporting highly qualified talent with the ideas and expertise to deliver bold new discoveries,” he said.  

    Policymakers said the initiative was one of the largest recruitment programs of its kind in the world, with minister of health Majorie Michel emphasising the tangible benefits to Canada’s healthcare system.  

    “Better healthcare begins with better research. And in Canada, we believe in science. We value our scientists.” 

    “These investments will attract the best and brightest in the world, including Francophone researchers. This is the exact talent we need to drive better healthcare outcomes for Canadians and grow the Canadian economy,” Michel declared. 

    This is the exact talent we need to drive better healthcare outcomes for Canadians and grow the Canadian economy

    Majorie Michel, Canadian Minister of Health

    The investment will be split across four funding streams. The Canada Impact+ Research Chairs program has been allocated the bulk of the investment and is set to receive CAD$1bn over 12 years to help universities attract world-leading international researchers.  

    Meanwhile, the Canada Impact+ Emerging Leaders program will use CAD$120 million over 12 years to bring international early-career researchers to the country and expand the research talent pool with “fresh ideas and diverse perspectives”. 

    Two additional funds of CAD$400m and CAD$130m respectively, will be used to strengthen research infrastructure and provide training to support doctoral students and researchers relocating to Canada.  

    Recruitment will focus on fields such as artificial intelligence, health, clean technology, quantum science, environmental resilience, democratic resilience, manufacturing, defence, and cybersecurity. 

    Karim Bardeesy, parliamentary secretary to the minister of industry, said at the announcement: “We need to invite the best and brightest from around the world and those Canadians abroad to come and do that work here in Canada.” 

    The initiative comes as Canada plans to reduce new international study permits by more than 50% in 2026, driven by wider federal efforts to reduce Canada’s temporary resident population to less than 5% of the total by the end of 2027. 

    Delivering Canada’s 2025 budget in November, finance minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said the measures were designed to give the government greater control over the immigration system and bring immigration back to “sustainable levels”. 

    The government has said immigration measures will be targeted to specifically boost the scientific benefits for Canada, such as through increasing the country’s supply of doctors as part of a new International Talent Attraction Strategy and Action Plan. 

    Source link

  • Open Assessment Technologies Launches the Next-Generation “TAO Community Edition”

    Open Assessment Technologies Launches the Next-Generation “TAO Community Edition”

    Empowering the Digital Transformation of the Educational Institutions through a Fair and Inclusive Education Ecosystem with Open Source and Open Standards

    Luxembourg, December 5, 2025 – Open Assessment Technologies (OAT), creators of TAO – the world’s leading open-source digital assessment platform, today announced the upcoming release of the new TAO Community Edition (TAO CE), the world’s leading open-source educational assessment platform. The new version will be available for free download globally on January 5, 2026. This milestone release marks a transformative step toward open, extensible, and community-driven innovation in digital assessment and educational ecosystem.

    The TAO CE includes an expanded suite of modular products–TAO Advance, TAO Grader, TAO Insights, and TAO Portal–providing a powerful, end-to-end integrated stack that enables institutions and developers to own, customize, and manage their assessment infrastructure fully.

    This release is part of the TAO Community Forum, a movement bringing together developers, assessment experts and institutions to co-create more effective, scalable and transparent assessment solutions. Through this ecosystem, users will gain direct access to collaborative tools, community-driven feature requests, roadmap discussions, and upcoming contribution opportunities.

    With the TAO Community Edition and its suite of modular tools, institutions and developers gain complete software ownership, free from vendor lock-in and per-user licensing constraints. The platform’s modular architecture enables users to integrate only the components they need, ensuring maximum flexibility and scalability.

    Thanks to its multilingual interface, supporting over 18 languages, TAO empowers organizations to deliver assessments globally, promoting equity, accessibility, and inclusion in education systems worldwide.

    “Digital assessment thrives when it’s open, extensible, and community-driven, not confined to proprietary systems.” said Mack K. Machida, Co-CEO, Open Assessment Technologies. “With the TAO Community Edition and our upcoming new developer forum, we’re empowering the global community to own their infrastructure, scale their solutions, and shape the next generation of learning from the inside out.”

    Built on open standards like QTI®, LTI®, and WCAG, TAO ensures interoperability and accessibility by design. Most importantly, it offers a platform for community-powered digital transformation, enabling contributors to directly influence the roadmap and functionality. All of this is orchestrated through the TAO Community Forum, offering streamlined oversight across the entire assessment ecosystem. TAO Community Edition and extended modules will be available under the Affero General Public License v3 (AGPLv3).

    How TAO Benefits Educational institutions

    Own your assessment software, not rent it

    Open-source code and transparent licensing keep you in control of your platform, roadmap and data, without black-box dependencies. Standards-first alignment (QTI®, LTI®, xAPI) ensures TAO plugs cleanly into existing LMS, identity, reporting, and proctoring ecosystems.

    Modular, end-to-end stack

    Adopt what you need–TAO Advance (delivery), TAO Grader (manual scoring), TAO Insights (analytics), and TAO Portal (admin)–including built-in, on-site proctoring. Scale capabilities at your pace.

    Community velocity & transparency

    A public developer forum (launching with TAO Community Edition) and contribution model let institutions influence features, share extensions, and accelerate fixes, turning users into co-builders.

    Equity at scale

    WCAG-aligned accessibility and a multilingual experience support inclusive delivery across regions, devices, and bandwidth conditions.

    Data portability & sovereignty

    Open standards and transparent formats simplify export, migration, and long-term stewardship to meet regulatory and archival requirements. Meet country data residency requirements by deploying TAO at the core of your infrastructure.

    About TAO

    TAO, from Open Assessment Technologies, is the leading digital assessment solution for education and career advancement. Modular, customizable, and interoperable by design, TAO empowers users to break free from proprietary constraints, eliminate costly licensing fees, and take full control of their testing resources. With its student interface available in more than 82 languages, TAO delivers over 30 million tests worldwide every year.

    Learn More: www.taotesting.com

     

    Media Contact:
    Miguel Prieto
    Vice President Corporate Strategy
    [email protected]

     

    *QTI®: Question and Test Interoperability
    *LTI®: Learning Tools Interoperability
    *WCAG: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
    *QTI® and LTI® are trademarks of the 1EdTech® Consortium, Inc. (1edtech.org)

    Source link

  • Lerner Publishing Group Launches Dr. Gholdy Muhammad’s Genius and Joy Curriculum

    Lerner Publishing Group Launches Dr. Gholdy Muhammad’s Genius and Joy Curriculum

    MINNEAPOLIS, MN—Lerner Publishing Group, a leading publisher of K-12 educational materials, is proud to announce the launch of Dr. Gholdy Muhammad’s groundbreaking Genius and Joy curriculum in Summer 2026. This new, all-in-one supplemental curriculum for Grades K–5 is grounded in Dr. Muhammad’s Five Pursuits Framework, a research-based educational model that enhances student engagement and intellectual growth.

    Within her research and scholarship in literacy development, English education and writing instruction, and culturally responsive pedagogies, Dr. Muhammad posed the question, “What if the purpose of schools and curriculum was to recognize and elevate the genius and joy of teachers and students?” The result is the Genius and Joy curriculum. This innovative curriculum prioritizes academic rigor by developing literacy skills, building subject area knowledge and centering students’ learning experience on joy. The curriculum is deep in content and thought while also practical and easy for teachers to use.

    Dr. Gholdy Muhammad’s Five Pursuits framework of Identity, Skills, Intellect, Criticality, and Joy is a research-based instructional approach that enhances student engagement and achievement by focusing on literacy, identity development, and historical awareness. Its impact is evident in the Lemon Grove School District in California, where implementation of the framework has led to measurable gains: Black and African American students have consistently increased their academic achievement, even surpassing the overall student population in English Language Arts proficiency. Additionally, Multilingual Learners (MLLs) in the district have experienced a tripling in reclassification rates, reflecting the effectiveness of equity-centered, data-informed practices that align with the framework’s core tenets. Schools and districts across forty-three states have implemented the Five Pursuits Framework into their instructional practices, and have been clamoring for an official curriculum.

    “I wanted teachers to see curriculum as the stories we teach and tell, as the world around us, and as the legacy that we leave in the lives of our children,” said Dr. Gholdy Muhammad. “It is my hope that this curriculum is a genius and joy experience for youth and teachers alike. We all deserve a comprehensive curricular experience.”

    The Genius and Joy Curriculum

    • Celebrates Joy in Teaching and Learning: The Genius and Joy Curriculum provides easy-to-implement approaches and strategies that include space within the learning experience where students can live out and discover their fullest potential. Joy is a safe and creative space to be free—free to learn, free to dream, and free to be.
    • Recognizes the Genius Within Every Child: Through powerful stories and dynamic activities, every lesson is designed to spark curiosity, encourage inquiry, and build students’ confidence in their own unique brilliance.
    • Elevates Learning Through the Five Pursuits: Through innovative pedagogy, students explore more than simple skill building. The five pursuits—identity, skills, intellect, criticality, and joy—of the HILL model are intended to teach the whole student and honor the goals of genius and joy.

    “We know that true learning happens when students see themselves in the material, feel their voices are valued, and are encouraged to think critically about the world around them,” said Adam Lerner, Publisher and CEO of Lerner Publishing Group. “We are proud to partner with Dr. Gholdy Muhammad on Genius and Joy to create an environment where students can not only excel academically, but also engage with Lerner’s award-winning books in ways that help them grow as whole individuals.”

    Genius and Joy will be available for purchase through Lerner Publishing Group starting Summer 2026. The curriculum will be accompanied by professional development resources to help educators implement the framework effectively, ensuring that the values of joy and academic excellence reach students in classrooms across the country.

    For more information about Genius and Joy visit geniusandjoycurriculum.com.

    Click here to watch Dr. Gholdy Muhammad’s webinar Celebrate the Genius and Joy of Every Student in Your Classroom.

    About Dr. Gholdy Muhammad
    Dr. Gholnecsar (Gholdy) Muhammad is the John Corbally Endowed Professor of Literacy, Language, and Culture at the University of Illinois Chicago. She has previously served as a classroom teacher, literacy specialist, school district administrator, curriculum director, and school board president. She studies Black historical excellence in education, intending to reframe curriculum and instruction today. Dr. Muhammad’s scholarship has appeared in leading academic journals and books. She has also received numerous national awards and is the author of the best-selling books, Cultivating Genius and Unearthing Joy. She also co-authored the book, Black Girls’ Literacies. Her Culturally and Historically Responsive Education Model has been adopted across thousands of U.S. schools and districts across Canada. In 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025, she was named among the top 1% Edu-Scholar Public Influencers due to her impact on policy and practice. She has led a federal grant with the United States Department of Education to study culturally and historically responsive literacy in STEM classrooms. In the fall of 2026, her first curriculum, entitledGenius and Joy, will be available to schools and educators.

    About Lerner Publishing Group™Lerner Publishing Group™ creates high-quality fiction and nonfiction for children and young adults. Founded in 1959, Lerner Publishing Group is one of the nation’s largest independent children’s book publishers with seventeen imprints and divisions: Carolrhoda Books®, Carolrhoda Lab®, Darby Creek™, ediciones Lerner, First Avenue Editions™, Gecko Press™, Graphic Universe™, Kar-Ben Publishing®, Lerner Publications, LernerClassroom™, Lerner Digital™, Millbrook Press™, Soaring Kite Books, Sundance Newbridge, Twenty-First Century Books™, Zest Books™, and Lerner Publisher Services™. For more information, visit www.lernerbooks.com or call 800-328-4929.                                  

    eSchool News Staff
    Latest posts by eSchool News Staff (see all)

    Source link

  • Illinois Launches Effort to Re-Enroll Adult Learners

    Illinois Launches Effort to Re-Enroll Adult Learners

    Illinois has partnered with ReUp to bring stopped-out students back to college.

    Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | rawpixel | Anand Raj/Pexels

    Illinois has launched a statewide effort to re-enroll students who stopped out of college, in partnership with ReUp Education, a company focused on recruiting and supporting adult learners, according to a news release. ReUp has established a re-enrollment marketplace in Illinois that will connect stopped-out learners with 19 participating community colleges and universities and provide them with live coaching and other resources.

    The platform will be accessible to 200,000 Illinois residents who have earned some college credits but not completed a degree. Nationwide, about 43 million Americans fall into that category.

    Illinois joins several other states and institutions that have begun making a concerted effort to bring stopped-out individuals back to college. According to ReUp’s release, the company has supported 40,000 students in re-enrolling in college.

    “Building a brighter future requires looking long and hard at the economic realities facing Illinois’ families and work force,” State Rep. Katie Stuart, chair of the Illinois House Higher Education Committee, said in the release. “Partnering with an established name in the adult education space to get more people skilled up for high-paying jobs is a big step in the right direction.”

    Source link

  • Edu Alliance Group Launches the Center for College Partnerships and Alliances – Edu Alliance Journal

    Edu Alliance Group Launches the Center for College Partnerships and Alliances – Edu Alliance Journal

    October 27, 2025, By Dean Hoke—As many of you know, I am deeply committed to helping small and mid-sized colleges find sustainable paths forward. That’s why I’m proud to announce the launch of the Edu Alliance Group Center for College Partnerships and Alliances, dedicated to helping institutions explore partnerships, mergers, and strategic alliances that strengthen their mission and impact.

    The Center will be led by newly appointed partners Dr. Chet Haskell and Dr. Barry Ryan, two distinguished higher education leaders with deep experience in governance, accreditation, and institutional transformation. Together, they bring a wealth of expertise in guiding colleges and universities through complex transitions while preserving mission integrity and academic excellence.

    The Center’s framework draws on insights presented in “A Guide to College Partnerships, Mergers, and Strategic Alliances for Boards and Leadership: From Awareness to Implementation,” authored by Dr. Chet Haskell, Dr. Barry Ryan, and Edu Alliance Managing Partner Dean Hoke. The guide outlines a five-stage model: Recognize, Assess, Explore, Negotiate, and Implement. It emphasizes mission integrity, transparency, and trust as the foundation for success.

    “Our goal is to help college leaders and boards move from awareness to action with clarity, confidence, and compassion,” said Dr. Haskell. “Partnerships and alliances can preserve institutional identity while creating new opportunities for students and communities.”

    “Edu Alliance has long supported institutions navigating change,” added Dean Hoke, Co-Founder and Managing Partner. “With the launch of the Center, we’re expanding our ability to help presidents and boards design solutions that are both visionary and pragmatic.”

    About the Leadership

    Dr. Chester (Chet) Haskell recently completed six and a half years as Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and University Provost at Antioch University, where he played key roles in integrating the institution academically and structurally, as well as in creating the Coalition for the Common Good with Otterbein University, where he was Vice President for Graduate Programs. He previously held senior positions at Harvard University—including Associate Dean of the Kennedy School of Government—and later served as Dean of the College at Simmons College (Boston). Dr. Haskell went on to serve as President of both the Monterey Institute of International Studies (now part of Middlebury College) and Cogswell Polytechnical College, leading both institutions through successful mergers. He holds DPA and MPA degrees from the University of Southern California, an MA from the University of Virginia, and an AB cum laude from Harvard University.

    Dr. Barry Ryan has served as President of five universities and as Provost and Chief of Staff at three others, spanning state, private nonprofit, and private for-profit institutions. A Supreme Court Fellow in the chambers of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, Dr. Ryan is a member of several federal and state bars and has held two terms as Commissioner for WASC (WSCUC). He has led institutions through mergers, acquisitions, and affiliations that preserved academic quality, expanded access, and strengthened long-term viability. His leadership is characterized by transparency, shared governance, and a deep commitment to stakeholder engagement. Dr. Ryan earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara, his J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Dipl.GB in international business from the University of Oxford.

    Upcoming Webinar

    As part of the launch, Edu Alliance will host a free national webinar on December 3, 2025, at 1 PM Eastern time titled “Navigating Higher Education’s Existential Challenges: From Partnerships and Mergers to Reinvention.” To register, go to https://admissions.augustana.edu/register/?id=838202a3-c7a7-4ce0-8dc1-11c7979fe27c

    The session will feature a distinguished panel of experts discussing practical strategies for independent colleges and universities.
    Panelists include

    • Dr. Chet Haskell and Dr. Barry Ryan, Partners and Co-Directors of Edu Alliance’s Center for College Partnerships and Alliances;
    • A.J. Prager, Managing Director at Hilltop Securities, specializing in Higher Education Mergers & Acquisitions and Strategic Partnerships;
    • Stephanie Gold, Partner and Head of the Higher Education Practice at Hogan Lovells.

    The program will be moderated by Dean Hoke and Kent Barnds, co-hosts of Small College America.

    Source link

  • Education Department officially launches 2026-27 FAFSA form

    Education Department officially launches 2026-27 FAFSA form

    This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.

    Dive Brief: 

    • The U.S. Department of Education rolled out the 2026-27 Free Application for Federal Student Aid to all students Wednesday, about a week before the congressionally mandated deadline.  

    • Education Department officials billed the release as the “earliest launch in the program’s history.” The new form comes with several updates, including a redesigned process for inviting parents or other contributors to add information to the application and faster account verification for students and parents, according to the agency. 

    • The on-time FAFSA follows later than usual releases the past two years. In 2023, the Education Department didn’t roll out the FAFSA until the final days of December — nearly three months after students and their families usually can access the form. 

    Dive Insight: 

    Education Department officials praised the on-time release after two rocky financial aid cycles. 

    “No one would have thought this was possible after the Biden-Harris administration infamously botched FAFSA’s rollout two short years ago,” U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a Wednesday statement. 

    In 2023, the Biden administration was responsible for carrying out the first major redesign of the FAFSA in over four decades, including by paring down the number of questions applicants must answer. However, even after the Education Department released the FAFSA in December that year, many students and families struggled to complete the form due to glitches and other technical issues. 

    Moreover, the Education Department didn’t begin sending FAFSA applicant data to colleges that financial aid cycle until March 2024, even though that information is typically available shortly after the form rolls out in October. Scores of colleges pushed back their traditional May 1 decision deadline as a result. 

    In response, congressional lawmakers passed a law in November 2024 mandating that the Education Department release the form by Oct. 1 each year. The statute also requires the U.S. education secretary to testify before Congress if the agency anticipates it will miss the deadline. 

    This year, the Education Department began beta testing the form in early August. During that period, students started nearly 44,000 FAFSA forms and submitted roughly 27,000 of them, according to the department. The agency has processed almost 24,000 FAFSA forms without rejection. 

    However, this financial aid cycle hasn’t come without criticism. A report earlier this month from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, a federal watchdog agency, raised questions about whether the Education Department was adequately overseeing contracted work on the new back-end system launched in 2023 for processing FAFSAs. 

    In September 2024, the Education Department told GAO officials that several functions required by a contract with a third-party vendor were not yet available, including the ability to make corrections to FAFSA applications and modify eligibility rules. At the time, the department said those functions would be available by 2026. 

    However, as of May 2025, the Education Department couldn’t provide an update on the system and said it was no longer tracking the contractual requirements, according to the GAO report. GAO recommended that Federal Student Aid’s chief operating officer take steps to improve contract monitoring. 

    The GAO’s report included a response from Aaron Lemon-Strauss, executive director of the FAFSA program, who pushed back on GAO’s framing. Lemon-Strauss wrote that some of its recommendations embrace a model that “assumes initial contracts can fully anticipate a system’s evolving needs.”

    Lemon-Strauss, who joined the department last year, said the agency has made changes to its FAFSA vendor contracts that allow it to adapt to user needs. For instance, after the 2024 FAFSA release, department officials identified that the FAFSA system still did not allow users to import their answers from the prior year to start their new forms — a contractually required feature. 

    “This is undoubtedly a helpful feature and one that should be included in the FAFSA,” Lemon-Strauss said to GAO. “Yet, rather than mechanically moving to implementing renewal capability, the team examined user data to determine where their next efforts would be maximally useful.”

    Internal data showed that some 5% of users were exiting the form and not returning once they needed to invite their parents or other contributors — such as a spouse or a parent’s spouse — to work on the application. In response, the Education Department decided to prioritize redesigning the process to invite outside contributors instead of focusing on the contractually required feature, Lemon-Strauss said.

    Source link

  • The 2026-27 FAFSA launches a week ahead of schedule

    The 2026-27 FAFSA launches a week ahead of schedule

    This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.

    Dive Brief: 

    • The U.S. Department of Education rolled out the 2026-27 Free Application for Federal Student Aid to all students Wednesday, about a week before the congressionally mandated deadline.  
    • Education Department officials billed the release as the “earliest launch in the program’s history.” The new form comes with several updates, including a redesigned process for inviting parents or other contributors to add information to the application and faster account verification for students and parents, according to the agency. 
    • The on-time FAFSA follows later than usual releases the past two years. In 2023, the Education Department didn’t roll out the FAFSA until the final days of December — nearly three months after students and their families usually can access the form. 

    Dive Insight: 

    Education Department officials praised the on-time release after two rocky financial aid cycles. 

    “No one would have thought this was possible after the Biden-Harris administration infamously botched FAFSA’s rollout two short years ago,” U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a Wednesday statement. 

    In 2023, the Biden administration was responsible for carrying out the first major redesign of the FAFSA in over four decades, including by paring down the number of questions applicants must answer. However, even after the Education Department released the FAFSA in December that year, many students and families struggled to complete the form due to glitches and other technical issues. 

    Moreover, the Education Department didn’t begin sending FAFSA applicant data to colleges that financial aid cycle until March 2024, even though that information is typically available shortly after the form rolls out in October. Scores of colleges pushed back their traditional May 1 decision deadline as a result. 

    In response, congressional lawmakers passed a law in November 2024 mandating that the Education Department release the form by Oct. 1 each year. The statute also requires the U.S. education secretary to testify before Congress if the agency anticipates it will miss the deadline. 

    This year, the Education Department began beta testing the form in early August. During that period, students started nearly 44,000 FAFSA forms and submitted roughly 27,000 of them, according to the department. The agency has processed almost 24,000 FAFSA forms without rejection. 

    However, this financial aid cycle hasn’t come without criticism. A report earlier this month from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, a federal watchdog agency, raised questions about whether the Education Department was adequately overseeing contracted work on the new back-end system launched in 2023 for processing FAFSAs. 

    In September 2024, the Education Department told GAO officials that several functions required by a contract with a third-party vendor were not yet available, including the ability to make corrections to FAFSA applications and modify eligibility rules. At the time, the department said those functions would be available by 2026. 

    However, as of May 2025, the Education Department couldn’t provide an update on the system and said it was no longer tracking the contractual requirements, according to the GAO report. GAO recommended that Federal Student Aid’s chief operating officer take steps to improve contract monitoring. 

    The GAO’s report included a response from Aaron Lemon-Strauss, executive director of the FAFSA program, who pushed back on GAO’s framing. Lemon-Strauss wrote that some of its recommendations embrace a model that “assumes initial contracts can fully anticipate a system’s evolving needs.”

    Lemon-Strauss, who joined the department last year, said the agency has made changes to its FAFSA vendor contracts that allow it to adapt to user needs. For instance, after the 2024 FAFSA release, department officials identified that the FAFSA system still did not allow users to import their answers from the prior year to start their new forms — a contractually required feature. 

    “This is undoubtedly a helpful feature and one that should be included in the FAFSA,” Lemon-Strauss said to GAO. “Yet, rather than mechanically moving to implementing renewal capability, the team examined user data to determine where their next efforts would be maximally useful.”

    Internal data showed that some 5% of users were exiting the form and not returning once they needed to invite their parents or other contributors — such as a spouse or a parent’s spouse — to work on the application. In response, the Education Department decided to prioritize redesigning the process to invite outside contributors instead of focusing on the contractually required feature, Lemon-Strauss said.

    Source link

  • Mass. College Launches Student-Led Basic Needs Center

    Mass. College Launches Student-Led Basic Needs Center

    An estimated 59 percent of all college students have experienced some form of housing or food insecurity in the past year, according to 2024 data from the Hope Center at Temple University. Closer to three in four students have lacked access to other basic needs, such as mental health care, childcare, transportation or technology.

    At Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, it was students who first noticed their peers needed additional resources.

    Spencer Moser, MCLA’s assistant dean for student growth and well-being, teaches a leadership capstone course in which students complete a community-based service project. “One group of students was aware that some of their peers were attending classes hungry,” he recalled.

    As part of their assignment, students researched available resources to address basic needs insecurity and identified the need for a campus pantry.

    “The program started as a drawer at my desk,” Moser said. “Then it grew to fill a shelving unit, a closet and eventually its own space on campus.”

    Now, MCLA hosts an Essential Needs Center (ENC) on campus for any student who may face financial barriers to acquiring food, housing or other necessary items.

    How it works: Located in the campus center, the Essential Needs Center is open 24 hours a day from Monday to Thursday, with more limited hours on Fridays. The center provides students with food, housing and transportation assistance, seasonal clothes, and more.

    Students can utilize a variety of resources to address food insecurity, including grab-and-go or instant meals and free meal swipes for the dining hall, as well as help with their SNAP applications. The center’s website also provides links to recipes using MCLA food pantry staples to help students with minimal cooking experience prepare nutritious meals.

    One of the unique offerings of MCLA’s center is a build-a-bundle initiative that allows students to request a variety of personal health, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom or cleaning items, as well as school supplies. Students can submit a form online requesting supplies ranging from a first-aid kit to baking supplies and a bath mat.

    The pantry has a small budget from the college, which is supplemented by grants, a partnership with the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts and donor support. Interested donors can give nonperishable food items, toiletries or monetary contributions.

    Student supported: The ENC first started with students looking to support their classmates, and student leadership continues to be at the heart of the center’s work.

    “Students manage the inventory, make sure their peers know about this resource, staff the center,” Moser said. “The center is student-run and -managed, designed to be student-centric due to the belief that students know best what students’ needs are.”

    The pantry sees 400 to 500 students use the pantry regularly, for a total of 1,313 visits between November 2023 and January 2025, Moser said.

    In fall 2024 alone, ENC logged 729 visits—including from 96 first-time visitors—and distributed over 2,600 items.

    Other Models of Success

    Basic needs insecurity impacts college students across the country, hindering their academic progress and forcing them to choose between educational pursuits and personal needs. Here are some examples of how other colleges and universities are promoting student well-being.

    • Anne Arundel Community College students in Maryland created a cookbook featuring items exclusively from the campus pantry, many reflecting their traditions and cultures.
    • Some colleges allow students to pay off their parking tickets by donating food pantry items.
    • Pace University offers a monthly mobile market for students, faculty and staff to receive free food items that cannot be stored for longer in the permanent campus pantry.
    • The University of California, Davis, piloted a discounted food truck on campus at lunchtime, allowing students to receive a hot meal at a pay-what-you-can price.
    • Virginia Commonwealth University established mini pantries across campus with grab-and-go food items, modeled off the concept of a little free library.

    Source link

  • ICEF launches new AI-powered compliance platform

    ICEF launches new AI-powered compliance platform

    The platform has been designed to:

    • provide five layers of compliance checks; regulatory, financial social media monitoring, physical verifications and liveness detection
    • monitor selected agent activity 24 hours a day using AI scanning software set to provide real-time risk alerts
    • enable institutions to perform due diligence on agent partners – and vice versa, as agents research private institutions they may seek to represent in market.

    ICEF has launched a new platform called Due Diligent, a system that it describes as “the first AI-powered tool designed to ensure ethical, transparent and compliant educator-agency partnerships”.

    It aims to improve the transparent monitoring of agent finances, representatives, social media and in-country marketing.

    The company already accredits over 2,300 agents and has trained more than 140,000 counsellors, enabling them to become certified through the ICEF Academy.

    The new platform promises to provide both educators and agents with real-time information about one another in a reciprocal way, including financial and regulatory checks as well as social media listening.

    Scaled by using the latest wave of artificial intelligence technology, the ICEF software constantly scans agent activity based on an institution’s own approved list, creating regular reports of social media messaging happening in each market to ensure it is on brand and compliant.

    Unapproved use of branding or incorrect information can also be flagged, allowing institutions better visibility of the long tail of subagent networks.

    Due Diligent has also been designed to search for information on the individuals who operate and own agencies, including financial checks and media coverage. The aim is to identify bad actors who may reappear again in another agency.

    Speaking to The PIE News, ICEF’s chief visionary officer, Tony Lee, said: “Most importantly, the new platform is looking at the individuals behind an agency. It’s about that transparency of knowing who those agencies are, so it’s not just a random company name in a random country – it’s knowing who’s behind that company as an individual.

    “We’ve also been able to use the next generation of social media listening software and crawling software so that we can hear and see what those individuals are saying in the public spaces,” continued Lee.

    Most importantly, the new platform is looking at the individuals behind an agency
    Tony Lee, ICEF

    The launch of ICEF Due Diligent is part of ICEF’s wider ‘Together for Transparency’ campaign, which is championing professional standards and greater trust between educators, recruitment agencies and students worldwide.

    “ICEF has been working in the agent space for 30 years,” continued Lee. “But we’re not judge or jury. We’re giving the framework for the entire sector to be effectively the ones that judge what is good or bad practice, we’re simply turning the lights on [to help make a considered decision].

    The platform was developed in consultation with over 400 industry stakeholders. One of the main frustrations expressed by the sector has been the burden of annually auditing large agent networks.

    It is hoped that the use of a continual AI-powered monitoring tool can relieve that burden and free up more time for strategic training, counselling and recruitment support.

    Markus Badde, CEO of ICEF, explained: “In today’s competitive and increasingly regulated environment, trust is everything. ICEF Due Diligent gives educators, agencies and stakeholders the confidence that their partners meet the highest professional and ethical standards, continuously.”

    Source link